Peel Region has major childhood vaccination backlog

Peel Region has a massive childhood vaccination backlog, with more than half of children missing at least one mandated vac‐ cine dose.

That's the warning from Peel's acting medical officer of health, who says the lack of school immunizations is spelling trouble for commu‐ nicable diseases.

"Without significant dedi‐ cated resources, we estimate it will take seven years to complete screening catch up and achieve pre-pandemic coverage rates," said Dr. Katherine Bingham in a pre‐ sentation to Peel council on April 11.

She says low immuniza‐ tion coverage among studen‐ ts significantly increases the risk for the re-emergence of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles.

Unless children have a valid exception, the following vaccines are mandatory for Ontario school children: diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, meningitis, whooping cough and chicken pox. Several oth‐ er vaccines are strongly rec‐ ommended by public health units and doctors.

Advocates, doctors and Peel public health are advo‐ cating for more attention to the issue, more money from the province for public health and the formation of an ac‐ tion plan to quickly address the currently low vaccination rates.

Peel stacks lower than the provincial average on a num‐ ber of vaccinations. For ex‐ ample, just over 37 per cent of seven-year-olds had been vaccinated against measles compared to more than 52 per cent province-wide as of August 31, 2022.

Peel Public Health says many children missed vacci‐ nations they would have re‐ ceived at school or a doctor's offices. Reporting of vaccines and enforcement also fell be‐ hind in the pandemic. To tackle the backlog more quickly, Peel Public Health opened public clinics for mandatory vaccines as of April 1 of this year. 'We never thought it would be us': mother

Jill Promoli, a Mississauga mother, lost her son, Jude, to a school flu outbreak eight years ago even though he was vaccinated. She's now an illness prevention advocate championing immunizations and said the low vaccination rates in Peel children are "very concerning."

"We never thought it would be us, but it is going to be someone," said Promoli, who's also a Peel District School Board Trustee, but did not speak to CBC Toronto in that capacity.

"The reason that we do vaccinate against these dis‐ eases is not because they're inconvenient or uncomfort‐ able, but it's because people do die from them," she said.

Promoli says she's also concerned about children who are vaccinated being ex‐ posed, given vaccines do not provide complete immunity.

Pediatric and infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anna Banerji, called the proportion of Peel students missing a mandated dose "very high."

"It needs to be ad‐ dressed," she said.

She says part of the prob‐ lem in the region is access, including to family doctors, but the region also has a di‐ verse population, which can mean additional challenges.

"I think that language and cultural support and trying to get these kids vaccinated will be very important," she said.

Banerji also pointed to vaccine hesitancy being high‐ er for some coming out of the pandemic.

She says seven years is far too long to have school-aged children not protected against such concerning dis‐ eases.

Needs will only grow, says Caledon mayor

The public health unit says they have less money than several nearby health units to try and tackle the issue, re‐ ceiving one of the lowest provincial per capita funding rates in the province.

For cost-shared programs, in Peel, public health was funded by the province at ap‐ proximately $34 per capita in 2022, while Toronto and Hamilton each received $49 per capita, according to the health authority's report.

Caledon Mayor Annette Groves says the funding needs to change now to ad‐ dress problems that will con‐ tinue to climb for Peel Public Health.

"Peel is a growing region and there will be greater need for funding as our resi‐ dent population increases," she said in a statement.

Province says funding has been increasing

Asked why Peel Public Health gets fewer dollars per capita, Ministry of Health spokesper‐ son Hannah Jensen didn't dispute Toronto and Hamil‐ ton received more funding per capita.

"Since 2018, our govern‐ ment has increased our in‐ vestment into Peel Public Health by nearly 20 per cent," she said in a statement.

Jensen said that's in addi‐ tion to the $100 million the provincial government in‐ vested into public health units across the province to provide support throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government has re‐ stored a funding model where the province pays 75 percent of cost sharing for public health units and mu‐ nicipalities including Peel pay 25 percent, she said, noting the province had been pay‐ ing 70 per cent for some time, so this represented an increase.

The province also in‐ creased base funding by one per cent per year, over the next three years, starting this year for public health units and municipalities including Peel, she added.

Asked why Peel would still receive a lower per capita rate that some of its neigh‐ bours, the province did not respond directly.

She says the government is working closely with its partners to get children caught up on vaccines.

Promoli says the per capi‐ ta discrepancy in funding be‐ tween regions is "shocking" and diverse populations need more, not less.

"It's always important to try to meet people where they are," she said. "To hear those questions, to hear the reasons why people are hesi‐ tant or even refusing and to try to understand…and then find the best ways to help people make decisions that will best protect their fami‐ lies."

Peel Public Health says it plans to return to council soon with more details about the challenges and its plans to address them.