Last-minute vaccination push to avoid student suspensions in Guelph and Wellington County

A local health unit is seeing a last-minute surge in vaccination appointments.

Wednesday was the deadline for students in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph to update their records with public health. Children who weren’t up-to-date with their required vaccines, or didn’t apply for an exemption, were suspended.

Public health confirmed with CTV News there were around 1,500 suspensions issued Wednesday.

“We have been telling parents for many weeks now,” Dr. Nicola Mercer, the medical officer of health for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, said Thursday. “So every parent, back in January and even in the fall, received notice that their children were due for certain vaccines [because] we didn’t have the records. Some parents updated them right away.”

The arrival of suspension day, however, has prompted renewed action.

“We had many parents showing up with their records for us so [the child] could go back to school,” Mercer said.

As of Thursday morning, the number of outstanding student vaccination records had fallen to 774.

Mercer expected another drastic drop by Friday morning.

“Hundreds of parents per day are either having their children vaccinated at our offices, showing up at clinician’s offices in our area, or providing us with their records,” she added.

All students in Ontario are required to be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, meningitis, whooping cough and chicken pox, unless they have a valid exemption.

The push to update student vaccinations comes amid a rise in measles in both Ontario and overseas.

While no cases have been confirmed in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, public health has investigated what they’re calling “suspicious” illnesses.

There are also no confirmed measles infections in the Region of Waterloo. Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the medical officer of health, spoke about her concerns at Wednesday night’s regional council meeting.

“At this time there have been no locally reported cases of measles, however I expect that will change in the coming weeks,” Wang said. “There have been several cases reported in other regions in Ontario, with the majority being associated with international travel. With increased travel during March break, we are expecting more cases to be identified. We are preparing as a local public health agency for our first case and we are also working with local healthcare partners to ensure we can quickly identify and respond to local cases.”

“I think people shouldn’t be complacent,” said Mercer. “We do know, for example, there are still populations which are really under vaccinated or are not vaccinated.”

Mercer also provided an update on the number of families who applied for an exemption.

“Currently we have over 1,000 children who are either unvaccinated or under vaccinated on that list, as well as certain communities that choose not to vaccinate. So we have a lot of people who could get measles.”

While suspension day has already passed for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, parents in Waterloo Region still have a week or more to update their child’s records before student suspensions are issued. The deadline for elementary students is March 27 and, for secondary students, May 1.