Thousands of students vaccinated after health unit warns of consequences for not having updated records

After reviewing immunization data, the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) found a large drop in coverage for some vaccines. This has prompted health officials to create an enforcement campaign in order to get thousands of students up-to-date with their mandatory vaccinations.

“Their records have to be up-to-date,” said Dr. Alex Summers, MLHU’s chief medical officer of health.

School vaccine requirements are in place to help prevent nine diseases including diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, measles, mumps, rubella, meningococcal disease and hepatitis B.

“The reason we’re doing this is to make sure we protect our community from vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Summers. “We want to keep kids healthy and we want to keep them in school. I recognize it’s ironic using suspensions to keep kids in school but it actually works by having those deadlines in place.”

In early January, parents with children enrolled in local schools received a notice advising them to get the required vaccines, otherwise they would be facing suspension.

“This year we’ve divided all the kids whose records aren’t up to date into six different groups,” Summers explained on Wednesday. “We are working through those six different groups between January and May, so we did our first group in January and we are onto our second group now in February.”

Since suspension notices were sent out for Jan. 18, 3,000 to 4,000 students were immunized with the required vaccines, according to Summers.

“For me as a parent, my kids repeatedly had virus after virus,” said Carol Dyck. “We know that the schools are hot beds for germs and for me right now I think the last thing we need is an outbreak of measles or meningitis.”

There will be consequences for unvaccinated students by suspension, unless children are eligible for an exemption, the health unit added.

An exemption would include a medical exemption or a conscientious exemption. In order to qualify for those exemptions, paper work needs to be completed, Summers said.

“There’s always options available for people. The only option that isn’t available is to not participate in the process at all,” he said.

Dan Peters, superintendent of education for the London District Catholic School said the health unit has been coordinating with each school’s principal.

“We are hoping to avoid suspensions,” he said, and explained that this might have been the first time that students have been in this situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic delaying annual vaccinations.

“I think every year there are situations with families where their children aren't up-to-date with vaccinations because families have had so many others going on and I think the pandemic exasperated that,” Peters said.

The MLHU sent out another notice stating that the second round of school suspensions will begin two weeks from Wednesday on Feb. 15.