The BC government has approved the Vaccination Status Reporting Regulation requiring parents or guardians to report the vaccination status of their school-age children. This regulation comes into force on July 1 and public health units will begin implementation of the regulation in September of 2019.
Recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease in BC have highlighted the importance of immunization coverage rates, particularly for children in the kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) school system. Since the beginning of 2019, there have been 29 confirmed cases of measles among B.C. residents. In response to these measles cases, the Province launched a two-phase plan to increase immunization rates in B.C.
Phase one was a measles catch-up program, which launched in March and will continue until the end of June for K-12 students. During the period April 1 to May 30, 2019, 15,796 doses of measles-containing vaccines have been administered by providers in health authorities to kindergarten to Grade 12 students. This is a preliminary total and will rise when all records are received by public health officials.
Phase two is the introduction of the Vaccination Status Reporting Regulation (Regulation) under the Public Health Act. When the Regulation is enacted on July 1, 2019, every student from K to 12 in public and independent schools, and those who are home-schooled, will be expected to have their complete immunization records in the Provincial Immunization Registry (the Registry).
If your child received their immunizations from a public health nurse in B.C., the information is automatically entered into the Registry and a record in the system will exist. If your child received any of their immunizations from a physician or pharmacist or out of province, the information about those immunizations may not have been entered into the Registry and a record may be absent or incomplete.
Why do we need vaccination status reporting?
Mandatory reporting of student’s immunization status increases public health’s ability to respond during an outbreak, as it allows health officials to quickly identify those who are underimmunized and unimmunized.
It is also a prompt for parents to check and ensure immunizations for their children are up to date and provides public health officials another opportunity to connect with families about why immunization is important for the health and well-being of their children, as well as the community.