Citation and commencement

1. These regulations, which insert a new regulation in the Vaccine Damage Payments Regulations 1979 (hereinafter referred to as the "principal regulations"), may be cited as the Vaccine Damage Payments (Amendment) Regulations 1979 and shall come into operation on 13th December 1979.

Addition to principal regulations

2. The principal regulations shall be amended by inserting after regulation 5, the following regulation:-

"Circumstances prescribed in relation to cases of damage through contact

5A. The circumstances prescribed for the purposes of section 1(3) of the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 (Act to have effect with respect to a person severely disabled as a result of contracting a disease through contact with a third person who was vaccinated against it) are that:-

(1) the disabled person has been in close physical contact with a person who has been vaccinated against poliomyelitis with orally administered vaccine;

(2) that contact occurred within a period of sixty days beginning with the fourth day immediately following such vaccination; and

(3) the disabled person was, within the period referred to in paragraph (2) of this regulation, either-

(a)looking after the person who has been vaccinated, or

(b)himself being looked after together with the person who has been vaccinated.".

EXPLANATORY NOTE

These Regulations amend the Vaccine Damage Payments Regulations 1979 by adding a new regulation which prescribes the circumstances in which the provisions of the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 are to have effect with respect to a person who is severely disabled as a result of contracting a disease through contact with a third person who was vaccinated against it as if the vaccination had been given to him and the disablement resulted from it. The circumstances prescribed are that the person suffering the disablement has been in close physical contact with a person who has been vaccinated against poliomyelitis with orally administered vaccine within a period of sixty days beginning with the fourth day immediately following the vaccination. The disabled person must also have been, within the sixty day period, either looking after the vaccinated person or himself being looked after together with the vaccinated person.