School vaccination suspensions put on hold due to cyberattack
Hack that disabled many City of Hamilton systems rendered public health immunization service unusable
Unvaccinated Hamilton students who may have been facing suspension next week have got a reprieve thanks to the cyberattack on city hall.
The city is still picking up the pieces from the sprawling hack, which hit the municipal network on Sunday and disabled many city systems — from emergency services to the public library.
Public health records were among the databases compromised by the hack. In a Friday afternoon news release, the city said the health department cannot access vaccination records and parents are having problems reporting immunizations to the department.
As part of a push to get student immunizations up to date during a period when measles is spreading, the public health department told parents in late January that students without up-to-date records would be suspended for 20 days. The deadline to report immunizations to public health was Monday, but that deadline has now been suspended.
It is not clear when the public health immunization databases will be working again, and a new deadline for immunizations has not yet been set.
“As the school year progresses, Hamilton Public Health Services will reassess and plan to resume enforcement under the Immunization of School Pupils Act,” says a city news release. “Further information will be shared with schools, parents/guardians and students as the planning continues.”
The current vaccination push was launched to address waning immunization against childhood diseases, including measles.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the usual vaccination programs as lockdowns shuttered schools and clinics, and public health resources were redeployed to cope with the novel virus.
As the pandemic has receded, due in significant measure to the use of COVID-19 vaccines, the public health department has resumed efforts to vaccinate elementary and high school students.
The push to boost vaccinations in Hamilton and other communities comes in the wake of a warning by the World Health Organization that diseases once under control — including measles, mumps and rubella — are surging around the world due to falling immunization rates.
There has yet to be a significant outbreak in Canada, but without enough people inoculated against highly infectious diseases like measles, the risk of one grows.
This week, a measles case was confirmed at McMaster Children’s Hospital. The virus is extremely contagious and at least 200 people may have been exposed. Hamilton and Brantford are running booster clinics in response to the exposures.
Hamilton public health data shows the full extent the immunization problem in the city.
In the last pre-COVID-19 school year, the 2018-19 term, vaccination rates for all nine diseases were at 90 per cent or higher. By Jan. 9, 2024, those numbers had cratered.
For most diseases, the rate had fallen to around 60 per cent, particularly for children aged seven to eight. That means around 2,300 students in that age group do not have up-to-date vaccination records.
Waning immunization against measles, mumps and rubella is less acute among high school teens because many of them received their shots prior to start of the pandemic in 2020.
Although public health is putting suspensions on hold, it continues to offer vaccination clinics for students on March 4 to 8 and March 11 to 12. These clinics will be held at 110 King St. W. on the plaza level, from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3:45 p.m. Clinics will close for lunch.
And, while the city’s vaccination record system is currently down, parents can still submit records through the mail or through the provincial reporting system online at hph.icon.ehealthontario.ca.