Immunization rates at two Centretown schools are well below the national average, according to data released by Ottawa Public Health last month.
Centretown’s Cambridge Public School has the lowest vaccination rate in Centretown at 61 per cent, followed closely by Centennial Public School with only 69 per cent of students vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella.
The average vaccination rate across Canada is 84 per cent, according to a 2013 UNICEF report.
Ottawa Public Health officials do not believe this data accurately reflects real vaccination numbers and that rates are likely much higher than the data suggests.
“The problem is these numbers are based on self-reporting, the parents have to report every time their child gets an immunization, and a lot of parents don’t know that they have to do that,” says Marie-Claude Turcotte, manager of the vaccine-preventable diseases branch at Ottawa Public Health.
However, UNICEF found Canada’s immunization rate ranks 28th out of 29 industrialized nations.
It has been falling steadily for the last decade.
“To be honest, there isn’t a lot of information about why vaccination rates are dropping,” Lisa Wolff, director of policy and education at UNICEF Canada says. “But it is really important to figure it out in order to find a solution.”
Roughly 20 per cent of Ontario residents believe vaccines could cause autism, while another 19 per cent neither agree nor disagree with that statement, according to a Mainstreet Technologies poll released earlier this year.
Fifteen per cent of respondents also disagreed that a drop in vaccination rates would have serious health impacts for children, according to the poll.
Vaccine programs have been effective at virtually eliminating many preventable diseases. As a result, new generations haven’t seen the effects of highly infectious viruses, such as those that cause measles or mumps, causing complacency on the part of parents, says Wolff.
“Right now, we are doing a blitz of immunization assessments for all the children who are schooled in Ottawa,” Turcotte says. “We are assessing their records and contacting parents whose children are missing an immunization.”
This blitz is an attempt to fill in the information gaps, so that in the next school year, Ottawa Public Health can start accurately targeting areas with low immunization.
“We will be able to issue, potentially, suspension orders for students who are still missing information, or who have not received their vaccination,” says Turcotte.
All children attending school between ages four and 17 need to be immunized and have proof of their up-to-date shots.
Students who are not immunized can be subject to suspension and their parents can be fined up to $1,000, according to the Immunization of School Pupils Act.
Almost 53 per cent of Ontarians believe schools should refuse unvaccinated children and 60 per cent believe childcare facilities should refuse unvaccinated children, according to the Mainstreet poll.
“The fear is losing what is called herd immunity rates. They are important to protect children who are immunodeficient and are therefore more vulnerable to diseases like measles and mumps,” says Dr. Carol Geller, of the Centretown Community Health Centre.
Herd immunity refers to the estimated percentage of people who must be vaccinated in a community to limit the chances of the disease spreading. The herd immunity rate for measles is 95 per cent.
“I think the best course of action is to study and figure out what are the main contributing factors in Canada that are causing parents not to vaccinate, to ensure all chidlren are protected,” says Wolff.