Immunization reporting to be part of Back to School routine this September

With classes now back in session for students across the province, the Ministry of Health has issued a reminder for parents and guardians to make sure that they are aware of the new mandatory reporting process in place when it comes to the immunization of their children.

The province reinforced the program yesterday with some notes from Health Minister Adrian Dix  who highlighted how the new requirement will help to prepare for any health related outbreaks in the schools.

“The next vital step is implementing the mandatory reporting of the immunization status of school-aged students. Through this new requirement, we are making sure that our public health system is better prepared in the event of another outbreak in schools.” -- Adrian Dix Minister of Health

The new policy comes out of this years global measles outbreak, with the Province taking action to increase immunization opportunities and to collect immunization records.

This Spring and into the early summer Health units across the province hosted immunization clinics, which worked to catch up and immunize school aged children between April 1st and June 30th.

The Health Minister noted yesterday that there is still work ahead to ensure that all students enrolled in BC schools will have been immunized and recorded.

“Our work continues. Beginning in fall 2019, all public, independent and home-schooled students from kindergarten to Grade 12 who are enrolled in B.C. schools in 2019-20 will be expected to have their current immunization status recorded in B.C.’s provincial immunization registry.”

You can learn more about the new reporting process from this information release from the Province of British Columbia.

The Ministry notes that 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, 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.

More on the vacation status policy is available here.

For more items of note on Health issues in the Northwest see our archive page here.

A look at items of interest from SD52 and other schools in the Northwest can be found here.

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