Vaccinations for kids in daycares not tracked
Councillor introduces motion to have public health report immunizations to city council
Toronto Public Health is not taking steps to ensure tens of thousands of children in daycares are vaccinated against measles and other diseases, even though provincial rules require it.
Dr. David McKeown, Toronto’s medical officer of public health, told reporters that daycare vaccination monitoring and outreach is “one of few areas we’re not compliant with the Ontario public health standards.”
The public health unit has failed in the past to get city council approval for funding to start what could be a huge program, McKeown said, adding that $40,000 in seed money has fallen out of this year’s proposed budget.
Immunizations of all Toronto schoolchildren are tracked, but not those of the younger daycare population — a worrying gap in light of the current measles outbreak, he said.
“That is a population we are concerned about,” McKeown said, adding that, “we should be as fully immunized as possible” to prevent further outbreaks.
The issue came to light when Christin Carmichael Greb, councillor for Ward 16, Eglinton-Lawrence and a member of the board of health, introduced a motion at council Wednesday.
Council unanimously approved her motion that public health report to the city budget committee on ways to ensure kids in daycares are immunized — an apparent bid to reinstate the $40,000 and trigger a request to the province for another $120,000 so public health can hire two staff to begin the process.
Mayor John Tory later said he will support the expense “so that those children can be protected against measles like other children.”
On Monday, public health officials said at least one unvaccinated child will be banned from a Toronto school after a possible measles exposure at a daycare by someone with the disease. Toronto Public Health said a person with measles visited the West End College Street YMCA daycare in late January, possibly ex- posing 120 children to the highly contagious disease.
The health unit held a private vaccination clinic on Monday for children, parents and staff at the daycare.
Under the provincial Immuniza- tion of School Pupils Act, unimmunized students can be banned from school unless they are granted a medical or “philosophical” waiver.
While Toronto can monitor its daycare population, the province would have to amend the law to include daycares before public health could take similar action to keep such children out of the facilities, McKeown said.
Toronto has a generally high level of vaccination, he said, although all are put at risk by clusters of unvaccinated children who have like-minded parents.
“As long as the proportion of people who exercise their right to a philosophical, a non-medical, exemption, is very small, then we can still achieve high levels of immunity — that herd immunity that helps prevent transmission of communicable diseases in the population,” McKeown said.
“If the proportion who are exercising a philosophical exemption became much larger, then it would threaten the levels of immunity in the whole population, and many children would be put at risk.”
There have now been seven recent measles cases in the GTA, including, it was reported Wednesday, the first in York Region — a man who had not travelled outside Canada and whose case is not linked to the six Toronto cases.
The first dose of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine is meant to be given at age 12 months and the second between ages 4 and 6. That means it is impossible to have all children in daycare fully vaccinated.
Council is expected to debate Carmichael Greb’s motion Wednesday or Thursday. Final city budget deliberations will happen in March. With files from Katrina Clarke and Jennifer Pagliaro