Some 15,000 students in Ottawa could face suspension in January unless they get their vaccinations up to date, the city’s public health agency warns.
After pausing suspensions for the past two years, Ottawa Public Health (OPH) said Monday in a report to the Ottawa Board of Health that they will resume.
Students born in 2007 and 2017 whose immunization records are incomplete and who aren’t exempt have until January to update them, or face suspension of up to 20 days.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches said the city’s playing “catch-up” after pausing the program during the pandemic.
“Ottawa Public Health staff were doing [COVID-19] contact tracing and outbreak management and we didn’t do the regular mailing out of letters to remind parents and guardians that your child has a vaccine record that’s missing,” she said.
Etches noted parents, not health-care providers, are responsible for keeping their children’s vaccinations up to date.
Warning letters coming in December
According to OPH, nearly 95 per cent of students in those seven- and 17-year-old sample groups had up-to-date records. As the current school year begins, only about 60 per cent are properly vaccinated.
“Since we’ve been doing immunization surveillance, we haven’t had this number of [incomplete] records,” Etches said.
Under the Immunization of School Pupils Act, children attending school in Ontario are required to be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, rubella and meningococcal disease, and for children born in 2010 or later, varicella (chicken pox).
“We need this information to know if there is an outbreak of measles or something else — who might be protected and who might need to leave the school environment, so they don’t get ill or spread an outbreak,” Etches said.
Students who don’t have their mandatory vaccinations will receive a letter in the mail in December notifying them they risk suspension. In January, they will receive notice of when the suspension will begin.
If the student’s record isn’t updated within the 20 days, they may return to school, but will later have to repeat the process.
“We definitely don’t want to see children out of school. They need to be in school, and that’s our focus,” Etches said.
A provincewide problem
Etches said this problem of incomplete vaccination records is provincewide.
Dr. Linna Li, medical officer for the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit, said her region is experiencing the same phenomenon.
“Many health units have a backlog of kids who need evaluation,” she said. “So the number of kids needing those vaccine records evaluated has risen compared to our typical baseline.”
Li said 1,300 students in her jurisdiction received suspension warnings at the beginning of the summer due to incomplete records. Now, she said only 60 students remain on the list.
Parents can update their children’s immunization records with the Immunization Connect Ontario (ICON) Tool or the CANImmunize App, OPH said.