School Health Week runs until 16 October. Here's how to check your child's vaccination record, what the school boosters cover, and what to do about missed doses.
South African observed School Health Week in mid-October. Here’s a guide on how to check if your child’s vaccinations are up to date. Picture: iStock
Dig out the Road-to-Health booklet. Then look for the consent form that might have come home in the school bag this past week.
Parents and caregivers are being urged to do both during School Health Week, which runs from 12 to 16 October 2026. Eligible learners can receive recommended vaccinations through the school health programme, but only if a parent or caregiver has signed off first.
Why the push, and why now?
The numbers are not flattering. According to Diane Buron, medical head and Africa vaccines medical franchise head at Sanofi South Africa, 87% of children received the first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2019. By 2025 that had dropped to 67%. Coverage for the third dose fell from 85% to 65% over the same period.
“South Africa needs to reverse the decline in childhood immunisation coverage,” Buron says.
The gap is not new. In the Department of Health’s own EPI-SA overview, presented at a May 2024 webinar, first-dose measles coverage for 2023/24 was 82.5%, and second-dose coverage was 84.8%. The programme’s target is at least 95%.
Disease reports tell the same story. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) confirmed 161 whooping cough cases in the first seven weeks of 2026. By 13 September, the country had recorded 5,037 confirmed measles cases, 595 rubella cases and 39 diphtheria cases.
Then there is polio. Two types of poliovirus were detected in Cape Town wastewater in May 2026. The Department of Health stressed that no human cases were found and that this was not an outbreak. It is, however, a reminder of what routine immunisation and monitoring are there to catch.
What the school boosters are for
Protection from vaccines can fade over time, so boosters remind the immune system what to do. South Africa’s childhood schedule includes booster doses against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough at the age of six and 12. The Grade 5 school health programme also offers protection against HPV under the Expanded Programme on Immunisation.
Children who missed an earlier dose may need catch-up vaccinations, and a child who looks perfectly healthy can still be unprotected.
What these diseases actually do
- Whooping cough (pertussis): Violent coughing fits that can last for weeks and make eating, drinking or breathing difficult. It is especially dangerous for babies and young children who are not fully vaccinated.
- Diphtheria: Affects the nose and throat, where a thick coating can make breathing or swallowing difficult. It can damage the heart, kidneys and nerves, and can be fatal.
- Tetanus: Enters through a cut or wound and causes painful muscle spasms, seizures and breathing problems. It needs urgent hospital treatment and does not spread from person to person.
- Measles: Spreads very easily and can lead to pneumonia, severe diarrhoea, dehydration, blindness, brain swelling and death.
- Rubella (German measles): Spreads through coughs and sneezes. It is usually mild in children but can be dangerous for an unborn baby if a woman is infected during pregnancy.
- Polio: Mainly affects young children. About one in 200 infections leads to permanent paralysis, and between 5% and 10% of those paralysed die when their breathing muscles stop working.
Why your signature matters
Under the Integrated School Health Programme, a child cannot be vaccinated at school without parental consent. A parent or caregiver must complete and sign the form first. If you have questions, speak to the school health team, a clinic nurse or your doctor before you sign.
Missed a dose? Here’s what to do
There is no need to wait for a school campaign. The health department’s EPI-SA guidance says missed doses should be checked whenever a child up to 12 comes into contact with the health system. That includes clinic visits, early childhood development centres and schools. Its catch-up schedule gives the first tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough booster from age six, with the second at 12.
Start with the vaccination record in the Road-to-Health booklet or clinic card. You can also take it to your nearest public clinic and ask a healthcare worker to check it.
If something is missing, the healthcare worker can advise on which doses your child needs, based on their age and history. Routine childhood vaccinations are available at public clinics. Lost the booklet? A replacement is free from any public clinic.
Reaching the children routine services miss
Some children never make it to a clinic at all. The department’s 2023/24 data flagged O.R. Tambo, Alfred Nzo and Amathole in the Eastern Cape among the districts with the highest proportions of “zero-dose” children, meaning those who have not received their first hexavalent dose. In O.R. Tambo, 41% of the target population was in that category.
Those are the three districts where Sanofi and UNICEF launched the Immunisation for Every Child programme in July 2026. It runs until March 2027. According to the company, three consultants are helping district health teams use local data to find low-coverage areas and plan visits, while training and mentoring healthcare workers.
“This partnership will help local health teams find children who have been missed and build the capacity needed to protect them,” Buron says.
Closer to home, Johannesburg had the highest number of zero-dose children of any district in 2023/24: 18 383, or 19% of its target population.
