And in other news, the Churches have openly expressed their disapproval of the HPV vaccine in schools, despite the Ministry of Health and Wellness' long standing campaign to vaccinate eligible children with parents' approval. When we asked the minister about it today he says they have to respect the churches' views but at the same time it cannot stop the work that they have been doing for years.
Kevin Bernard - Minister of Health & Wellness
"I mean while I respect the church's point of view with respect to what I received from father Jordan, a very good friend of mine by the way. We at the ministry have a responsibility for the health of our nation and we will continue to ensure that we can promote and provide these essential vaccines especially for out young girls and young children that need these vaccines, it is about prevention it is not about promoting any form of promiscuity or so it is about preventing something from happening and I think that I want to make that appeal to the churches and certainly to our catholic faith church base here in Belize for them to reconsider. It has been a long standing process where we go to the schools as a ministry, we seek permission from parents as opposed to what is being said out there the ministry of health has a process that they follow there is education that comes with it the parents are informed and they have to give that written consent to say yes or no it starts not only with HPV vaccines but it includes deworming. Just last week my daughter took a note to us highlighting the things the ministry wants to go and do at the Louisiana government school and permission had to be sought for the sole purpose of deworming children in the institution so it is something we do on a regular basis and as I said while I respect the churches position I make the appeal again as the minister of health for them to reconsider that but at the same time we are not going to have that cause us to lose our strength and strides we have made in terms of achieving just last year where we had 75.1% of our target population protected by HPV vaccines."
