The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is exceeding provincial targets when it comes to immunizing children against several vaccine-preventable diseases.
In Ontario, the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA) requires children and adolescents attending primary or secondary school to be immunized against mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, meningococcal, varicella, and polio, or have a valid medical, conscience, or religious belief exemption on file at the health unit.
Immunization is also recommended for human papillomavirus (HPV) and hepatitis B.
In every category of the immunization coverage rates for ISPA required and recommended vaccines, Windsor-Essex is exceeding the provincial targets by quite a bit.
"It continues to improve year-over-year. This is something that our health unit really prioritized post-pandemic, knowing that a lot of students with school closures, missed days and missed opportunities for vaccines," she says. "So we prioritized this right after the pandemic, and year-over-year we've seen an improvement in terms of coverage, which is great news for our community."
McBeth says while they are doing great in all areas, they do want to focus on those that are not mandatory, like HPV.
"There's really strong evidence that really suggests that the HPV vaccine is incredibly effective at reducing, in particular, a whole list of cancers later in life, so we really want to see those HPV rates increase," she says.
HPV is a sexually transmitted virus that you can catch from an infected person through sexual activity, including oral sex or intimate skin-to-skin contact with an infected person.
You don't have to have intercourse to get HPV.
According to the Ontario government, without immunization, 3 out of 4 sexually active Canadians will be infected with HPV at some point in their lives and it can cause life-threatening diseases including cervical, penile, head or neck cancer.
McBeth says often when people think about school-aged vaccines, they think of suspensions for those lacking updated records.
"That's really just an outcome of an enforcement process, and the end result of that is just to make sure that every student attending schools in Windsor-Essex, number one, knows what they should have to stay protected and safe, and number two, what they have access to for free," she says. "So suspension is an outcome of enforcement; it is not the goal. This is to offer people vaccines to remain safe and healthy."
Under the Immunization of School Pupils Act, public health units must maintain and review immunization records for every student attending school in Ontario.
Under the act, those who fail to provide updated immunization records face suspension from school until updated records are provided.