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American Samoa's Director of Health is urging parents to make sure their children have been immunised to keep them healthy but also to avoid an interruption in their education.
Motusa Tuileama Nua's comments come as the government looks to enforce a law requiring all children to complete their vaccinations by a certain age.
The Department of Health has extended a deadline until April 1 for school children to complete their required immunisation schedule before they start restricting students from attending.
Authorities have discovered some high school students have not had their shots.
Motusa said his department was trying to get the message through to parents that vaccinations were for the protection of their children.
"The main challenge that we have now is pretty much educating our parents, making them believe that protecting our kids at a very young age is a very important part of their support. A lot of those preventative vaccinations, they are long-term vaccinations that will take care of the kids all the way up until adolescence." he said.
