Cent Eur J Public Health 2024, 32(1):58-62 | DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a8087

Compulsory vaccination of children – medical and legal problems

Vít Vlček
Public Health Authority of the Capital City of Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Regarding the vaccination of children, it can be said that there are basically three vaccination policies in the world, one of which is usually used in particular country depending on the national legislation. These are the mandatory vaccination policy, mandatory vaccination policy for school entry and recommended vaccination policy. The mandatory vaccination policy and the mandatory vaccination policy for school entry face obstacles consisting of conflicts between fundamental human rights and freedoms. This is, for example, a conflict between the right to health and the right to life on the one hand and the right to protect the inviolability of the person and body integrity or the right to personal freedom, freedom of movement, residence, etc., on the other. Another issue is the right to undisrupted school attendance, based on both compulsory schooling and the right to education. This article looks at different approaches to the vaccination of children in different countries. It provides an illustrative comparison of approaches to vaccination of children in selected countries. It is obvious that the essential problems with organizing and ensuring the vaccination of children are and will be associated with the indicated conflicts of fundamental human rights. It is therefore necessary to search and try to find the optimal policy for undergoing the necessary vaccinations and thereby creating herd immunity, of course for those infectious diseases where this is possible. These efforts are necessary for sufficiently effective protection of individual and public health.

Keywords: compulsory, mandatory, recommended vaccination, fundamental human rights and freedoms, herd immunity

Received: October 2, 2023; Revised: March 21, 2024; Accepted: March 21, 2024; Published: March 31, 2024  Show citation

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Vlček V. Compulsory vaccination of children – medical and legal problems. Cent Eur J Public Health. 2024;32(1):58-62. doi: 10.21101/cejph.a8087. PubMed PMID: 38669159.
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