Latest News
Province takes new steps to ensure students are vaccinated
Starting with the next school year, parents and guardians will be expected to provide the immunization status of their children to their local public health unit.
Starting with the next school year, parents
and guardians will be expected to provide the immunization status of their
children to their local public health unit.
The province is implementing this mandatory
reporting requirement through the Vaccination Status Reporting Regulation.
“In the wake of the global measles outbreaks
this spring, B.C. is implementing several measures to protect children and
families from this and other communicable diseases through improved immunization,”
says Health Minister Adrian Dix.
“This mandatory reporting of the immunization
status of students will ensure the public health system is prepared in the
event of an outbreak. Furthermore, with the up-to-date records, public health
can reach out to families with children behind on their immunizations and
provide an opportunity to catch them up, as well as discuss any concerns with
parents.”
Most parents are already in compliance with
this requirement, so they will not need to do anything further when the new
school year starts. Parents or guardians with an incomplete or missing record
will be contacted by public health on how to provide their child’s immunization
information if it is needed, plus receive information on upcoming school-based
or community health clinics where their child can receive immunizations if they
require them.
“Through this additional measure, we can be
confident that health officials will be able to provide better protection to
our students by preventing outbreaks,” says Education Minister Rob Fleming. “Improving
the rates of immunization of children and youth is critically important for
student safety and healthy schools across B.C.”
Public health officials will review school
enrolment records in late August and into October 2019 to match them against
immunization records for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students that currently exist
in the provincial immunization registry.
For the first year of this reporting
requirement, the goal is to help parents get their children up to date on
immunizations by the end of the school year.
Considerable work has already been done, and
more is underway to help prepare for mandatory immunization status reporting.
As part of the measles immunization catch-up
campaign, health authorities have reviewed thousands of records in relation to
measles vaccinations.
At the same time, parents have been providing
health units missing and updated records while taking advantage of the measles
immunization clinics.
Mandatory reporting of student’s immunization
status increases public health’s ability to respond during an outbreak, as it
allows health officials to quickly identify those who don’t have immunizations
or missing booster shots. Some people are under or unimmunized for severe
health reasons. They can be the very people who depend on other people’s
vaccinations to stay safe, healthy and, in some cases, alive.
It is also a prompt for parents to check and
ensure immunizations for their children are up to date.
Is also provides public health officials
another opportunity to connect with families about why immunization is
important for the health and well-being of not only their children but of our
whole community.
In addition to public health clinics, parents
are able to get their children immunized through their primary care providers
such as family physicians or through community pharmacists at no charge.
Mandatory reporting is part of the ongoing
plan to increase immunization rates for all vaccine-preventable diseases.
This effort commenced with the measles
immunization catch-up program in April 2019.
The most recent numbers indicates that
increasing the opportunities for guardians to get children immunized is
improving immunization levels overall.
“This spring, we launched the catch-up
measles immunization program throughout schools and public health units, which
is having a positive effect,” says Dix.
“Since April, the number of kindergarten-to-Grade
12 students having received two doses of measles vaccine has increased by over
33,000. Based on the records reviewed so far by health authorities—amounting to
over 566,000—nearly 95% of students have received one or two doses of vaccine.”
B.C. has a comprehensive provincial childhood immunization program, which includes coverage for a wide variety of diseases including measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, pertussis, polio, HPV, varicella, diphtheria, influenza, meningococcal disease and hepatitis.
To check on immunization status, or to find a public health unit anywhere in the province click.