{"id":120876,"date":"2025-09-05T03:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120876\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T03:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:14:12","slug":"measles-outbreak-highlights-need-for-modernized-vaccine-registry-ontarios-chief-medical-officer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120876\/","title":{"rendered":"Measles outbreak highlights need for modernized vaccine registry, Ontario\u2019s chief medical officer says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ontario is lagging behind other provinces who have modernized their vaccine records, the province’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kieran Moore said in his annual report.Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s<\/a> top doctor is calling for a national immunization schedule and registry to address gaps exposed by the resurgence of measles<\/a> in Canada \u2013 but first, he says his own province needs a centralized digital vaccine system. <\/p>\n

Dr. Kieran Moore\u2019s annual report, recently tabled with the provincial legislature, says a co-ordinated approach from all levels of government and the health-care system is needed to keep vaccine-preventable diseases at bay amid a rise in vaccine hesitancy. <\/p>\n

Each province and territory has its own immunization schedule and data system but for more than 20 years, health-care providers and public health experts have been advocating for a national vaccine registry. The Canadian Paediatric Society has also called for vaccine schedules to be harmonized across the country since 1997. <\/p>\n

In his report, Moore said Ontario is lagging behind other provinces who have modernized their vaccine records, including British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n

This patchwork approach has led to confusion for parents who have become record keepers, and left public health officials in the dark when it comes to coverage gaps and inequities in access, making it difficult to respond to outbreaks.<\/p>\n

Measles could keep spreading for a year, says Canada\u2019s chief public health officer<\/a><\/p>\n

Ontario chief medical officer stands by vaccine exemption law despite rising measles cases<\/a><\/p>\n

Moore said this has also made it challenging to monitor vaccine effectiveness and safety, critical information as parental skepticism of routine immunizations doubled in Canada between 2019 and 2024. Childhood vaccination rates have also tumbled since the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cVaccine preventable diseases are an ongoing threat that can and will re-emerge if we let our guard down. A recent outbreak of measles in Ontario has unfortunately highlighted how quickly previously controlled diseases can spread,\u201d Moore said in the report.<\/p>\n

Dr. Vinita Dubey, Toronto\u2019s associate medical officer of health, said in an interview last month that the process in her jurisdiction is outdated.<\/p>\n

Parents keep track of their kids\u2019 immunization records and must submit them to public school boards in Toronto. That information is shared with Toronto Public Health, manually inputted into its own system and then letters are sent to households that have not supplied vaccine records.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very, very manual process. Our system itself doesn\u2019t speak to a lot of other systems,\u201d Dubey said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so those are some of the ways in which it\u2019s really outdated.\u201d <\/p>\n

Moore\u2019s report said the Public Health Agency of Canada is working with provinces and territories to connect existing immunization registries and develop a surveillance system for vaccine coverage. <\/p>\n

As of October 2024, five provinces and one territory \u2013 Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Yukon \u2013 have submitted vaccine records, according to the federal government\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Ontario currently stores vaccine records in three separate data systems: one for schools and child care centres, another for COVID-19 shots, and a third for Ontario Health Insurance Plan billing claims and electronic medical records from doctor\u2019s offices or community pharmacies.<\/p>\n

Measles resurgence exposes fault lines over vaccines and faith in Alberta town<\/a><\/p>\n

Moore said the Ministry of Health\u2019s efforts to link these data systems are encouraging. A ministry spokesperson said Ontario is working to provide patients with a digital identity tool to access their personal health information, including vaccination records. <\/p>\n

Moore said in the report that Ontario has faced challenges with integrating data from various health-care providers without duplicating entries. Routine childhood immunizations are primarily administered by family doctors, unlike in several other provinces where public health nurses take on this role and the information is more easily consolidated. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an economic advantage to a national vaccine schedule as centralized procurement would reduce costs through bulk purchasing, reduce duplicate shots, and preventable hospitalizations, the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Ontario is lagging behind other provinces who have modernized their vaccine records, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,84,392,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-120876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}