Med­ical doc­tor, Dr Rai Rag­bir, is call­ing on the Min­is­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion and Health to work in to­geth­er, to en­sure pri­ma­ry school stu­dents—es­pe­cial­ly those suf­fer­ing with asth­ma—get the flu vac­cine.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day at his Ch­agua­nas of­fices, Dr Rag­bir said over 35 re­port­ed cas­es of death be­cause of the virus has many wor­ried, yet the Min­istry of Health was mov­ing in an ar­cha­ic man­ner to en­sure na­tion­als are vac­ci­nat­ed.

Dr Rag­bir said mem­bers of the pub­lic are in­oc­u­lat­ed some­times once or twice a week and there are long lines and bu­reau­cra­cy at the health cen­tres. He said be­cause of this, many par­ents are not tak­ing their chil­dren to get vac­ci­nat­ed. He said pri­vate doc­tors al­so have run out of the vac­cines.

He called on the Min­istry of Health to in­stead reach out to the var­i­ous pri­ma­ry schools and work in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, to en­sure nurs­es get in­to schools and ad­min­is­ter the vac­cines once par­ents give their con­sent.

Dr Rag­bir said ap­peal­ing to the par­ents to take their chil­dren to the health cen­tres may not be enough, since many are sin­gle par­ents who have to work and may not get time off. He al­so points out that some par­ents may not see the im­por­tance of the vac­cines be­cause of mis­un­der­stand­ing.