25,000 students risk bans for lack of immunization

Public health campaign since 2015 has cut number by more than half

More than 25,000 Ottawa students have been warned to get their immunization records up to date or face suspension.

The students at the city’s four public school boards and private schools received notices in recent weeks from Ottawa Public Health. Beginning in January, students attending French elementary schools whose immunization records are still not updated will be suspended. Suspension notices will go out to students at other boards and private schools in subsequent weeks.

Suspension notices have become a routine part of the school year in Ottawa for thousands of students since Ottawa Public Health began increasing immunization surveillance in 2015 with yearly reviews of all students’ records.

Routine childhood immunization against infectious diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella are mandatory for schoolchildren under Ontario law unless their parents are granted exemptions for religious, philosophical or religious reasons.

With the return of vaccine preventable childhood diseases — including a 30 per cent increase in measles cases worldwide last year — there has been a growing public health focus on ensuring children’s immunizations are up to date.

At times Ottawa Public Health’s approach to immunization appears to be chaotic, with 17 per cent of students receiving notices this fall. But public health officials say the system works: Not only has the number of students with incomplete immunization records dropped significantly in the past three years, but Ottawa children also have vaccination rates above provincial and national averages.

In 2015, when the intensified surveillance began, Ottawa Public Health sent warning letters to 58,740 students. This year, 25,781 notices were sent.

Lorette Dupuis, program manager of the immunization program at Ottawa Public Health, said the health unit would like to see that annual list of students with incomplete records reduced to 20,000, but it is unlikely to be much less than that. About 8,000 new children enter the school system each year and many of those already in the system face new vaccination requirements, which means thousands each year have incomplete records.

Around 85 per cent of students who receive warning notices update their records before facing suspension, Dupuis said, but hundreds of students are suspended every year. Any suspensions this year will take place between Jan. 16 and Feb. 28. Dupuis said Ottawa Public Health had been receiving 300 to 500 online submissions a day updating students’ health records.

Catch-up clinics run by the health unit are fully booked, Dupuis said, but families are encouraged to contact their health providers to get vaccinated.

Meanwhile, in a report to the city’s health board earlier this year, Ottawa Public Health said it aimed to increase coverage in under-vaccinated populations. Among other things, it is improving access for newcomers living in shelters.

It is also focusing on vaccine-hesitant families. More than 4,800 Ottawa students are exempted from one or more vaccines, more than half of them for philosophical reasons.

The health unit says it is working to better understand the vaccine hesitant in the community. It is developing a communications strategy to “promote immunization, increase knowledge about immunization and dispel myths about vaccines.”

The majority of families receiving suspension notices are not vaccine hesitant, but have either failed to update records or been delayed in getting their children vaccinated.

Ottawa Public Health is also focusing on increasing coverage rates for vaccines such as HPV, which around 60 per cent of students receive. The vaccine, which protects against viruses that cause some forms of cancer, has only recently been expanded for offering to boys and girls in Grade 7. It is not mandatory under provincial law.

Coverage of the vaccines that are mandatory — measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, polio and pertussis — has increased in Ottawa since the annual student immunization review began.

More than 93 per cent of seven year olds have received measles vaccines, while more than 96 per cent of 17 year olds are covered. Before the blitz to update immunization records, public health officials did not have an accurate picture of how many children in the city were immunized. How to update your child’s immunization records: Call 613-PARENTS or go to ParentinginOttawa.ca/immunization.