Cork Kerry Community Healthcare is running vaccination clinics this summer for children who missed scheduled immunisations due to the Covid-19 school closures.

Cork Kerry Community Healthcare School Immunisation Teams are running the appointment-only clinics. The closure of schools in mid-March means that the scheduled school immunisation programmes were paused, and there are now 13,000 children and young people who need to receive important vaccinations scheduled under the programme.

Each year, the Cork Kerry Community Healthcare School Immunisation Programme offers:

• MMR and the 4-in1 vaccination to all Junior Infants
• HPV, Tdap and MenACWY to all first year students in second-level.

Parents and guardians of children who were in Junior Infants or First year in the 2019/2020 school year and who hadn’t received their scheduled vaccinations before the closure of schools will receive a letter with an appointment for their child.

The clinics will take place at:

• St Mary’s Health campus, Cork City
• Nemo Hurling and Football club, Cork Cit
• The Gilbert Centre, Mallow
• The new Bantry Primary Care Centre
• Kerry Sports Academy, IT Tralee North Campus

Large venues are being used so that the vaccinations teams can vaccinate many children each day while also allowing for physical distancing.

The clinics are organised and run by experienced school immunisation teams, and team members include public health nurses, registered general nurses, assistant directors of public health nursing, doctors and administration staff.

The clinics began on Monday July 13th in Cork and on July 8th in Kerry and will run weekdays during July and August, on an appointment basis only.

Dr Angela O’Leary, Principal Medical Officer with Cork Kerry Community Healthcare said:

“We are asking parents and guardians to make every effort to make sure that their children attend at their allotted appointment time. It is important the 2019 first year students complete their HPV vaccination programme and receive their meningitis booster vaccination and that the junior infants receive their 4 in 1 and MMR booster vaccinations, as this will protect them from preventable illnesses such as meningitis, mumps and measles.”

Cora Williams, Director of Public Health Nursing added:

“These important immunisation programmes were paused due to Covid-19. We’re now making sure that young people have access to these important vaccinations by putting teams and resources in place to run these clinics. This will ensure that the children are protected from these vaccine preventable diseases.”

Important points for parents and guardians:

• You may be asked to wait in your car for 15 minutes after your child has received their vaccine.
• For families who are not travelling by car, a waiting space with appropriate physical distancing measures in place will be made available.
• Children ages over 13 will be offered masks when they enter the venue.
• Only one adult (parent or guardian) should come with the child to the vaccination clinic.

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