A Jewish school in Ohio has announced that it will no longer accept religious reasons as a valid excuse for parents who choose to not vaccinate their children.
In a letter to parents, the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland said exceptions would only be made for students who were allergic to a certain vaccinations and had a doctor's note to prove it.
If an outbreak does occur, exempt students will be barred from attending the private Jewish day school which teaches pre-school pupils through to the age of 18.
“We recognise that there are families that have strong views on both sides of this issue,” the letter stated. “However, this is not an area where we can accommodate any deviation from this new protocol.”
Ohio students, depending on their grade level, are mandated to receive six vaccinations, which Polio, Chickenpox, and Measles are included among.
Cleveland Clinic’s Dr Baruch Fertel, whose children attend the academy, agreed with the new vaccination policy. He told the Cleveland19 news channel that he did not see a religious, or scientific, reason to not vaccinate children.
He also suggested pop culture — not religion — has more to do with reasons why parents refuse to vaccinate their children.
“A lot of it has to do with prominent celebrities all across the spectrum, even some politicians have weighted into this discussion,” he said. “Some people choose not to vaccinate because they may have read some medical literature that raised some questions. That literature has really been discredited.”
“We live in a global world,” he added. “People have family coming from all over. People travel all across the country, so it’s certainly possible for something like that to come.”
The announcement came as measles and chickenpox outbreaks were reported in New York and North Carolina. There are 100 reported cases of measles in New York’s Orthodox Jewish community.
North Carolina's Asheville Waldorf School has also seen 36 children fall ill from varicella zoster virus - the first time in 20-years that the state has seen such a large number of chickenpox cases.
The private school has a high rate of religious exemptions for vaccinations.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) also warned earlier this week that parents who shun vaccines are partially to blame for a 30 per cent rise in the number of measles cases reported across the globe in the space of year.
Around 173,000 measles cases were officially reported in 2017, the organisation said in a report. The true number of cases is estimated at 6.7 million last year, it added.
