ISLAMABAD: Although the Senate Standing Committee on National Health Services (NHS) on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill titled `The Islamabad Mandatory Vaccination Bill`, the name of the bill was later changed to `The Islamabad Compulsory Vaccination Bill`.

The name`s amendment may af fect efforts to vaccinate children, as vaccination will not be considered `mandatory`.

However, the mover of the bill, Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq told Dawn that although she believes both words to be similar, the committee, presided over by Senator Sajid Hussain Turi, was of the view that `mandatory` held more emphasis, while `compulsory` allowed a little liberty to those who were not vaccinated.

In Pakistan, particularly in rural areas, a signiñcant portion of the population does not vaccinate children, which is why Pakistan has a much higher mortality rate than other countries. The bill, tabled in April 2015, hopes to save 400,000 Pakistani children who die every year of preventable diseases.

According to the draft bill, the Form B should not be issued to children unless a vaccination certiñcate is provided. Moreover, a vaccination card should also be required for school admissions and those who fail to provide vaccination cards at admission should be asked to get vaccinated again. A fine was also recommended for parents who fail to vaccinate their children.

Ms Farooq said that committee members also suggested that, instead of malcing a vaccination card mandatory for admission, the education institutions should instead encourage vaccination cards, because according to Article 25-A education is compulsory and cannot be denied due to the unavailability of vaccination cards.

She said that the bill will now be sent to the NHS ministry for amendments and then it will be tabled in the Senate.

`If the bill is passed by parliament, it can only be implemented in Islamabad, but we are trying to make it a national law. According to Article 41, if two provincial assemblies pass the bill, we can make it national law by getting it passed in the parliament,` Ms Farooq explained.

She said the committee had contacted the Punjab and Sindh governments and were convincing them to pass the bill so that vaccination laws could be implemented across the country.