What you need to know about vaccines needed for back-to-school

Dr. Paul Roumeliotis puts the focus on the medical aspects of returning to school including vaccinations and allergies.

With schoolchildren headed back to classrooms across Ottawa, public health officials are reminding parents and caregivers of the importance of ensuring kids are up to date on their vaccines.

Under Ontario law, children who attend primary and secondary school in the province must be immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, meningitis (meningococcal disease), whooping cough (pertussis). and chickenpox (varicella) if born in 2010 or later, unless they have a valid medical or religious exemption.

Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, medical officer of health for the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, told CTV Morning Live on Wednesday that the best thing to do is schedule a checkup for your child with your primary care provider and make sure the school knows what your child’s health needs are.

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“Basically, always try to get a checkup before school starts,” he said. “Very importantly, is there any medication or anything that needs to be told to the school, get it in writing ahead of time. For example, kids have peanut allergies, so you might need an EpiPen. Does the school know that your child needs an EpiPen?”

There are three sets of vaccines to prepare for.

“There are vaccinations that are needed between four and six years of age, so this is the tetanus, diphtheria and polio shots and whooping cough,” Roumeliotis said. “And then, very importantly, the measles, mumps and rubella—the MMR—and that’s very important because that’s the booster we need as we’re seeing a lot of measles going around. And there’s a chicken pox vaccination. It’s all given at once.”

Ontario has seen more than 2,000 confirmed cases of measles in 26 health units in the last year. Ottawa Public Health says there have been five confirmed cases in the city as of mid-August. A majority of the cases in Ontario are linked to an outbreak that began last October.

The next set is for children in Grade 7.

“Hepatitis B in Grade 7, meningococcal, and HPV (human papillomavirus),” Roumeliotis said. “HPV is the one that causes cervical cancer and so on. If your child goes to school, your child can get it at school.”

The next set is for students between 14 and 16 years of age.

“Fourteen- to 16-year-olds need a booster for whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria,” Roumeliotis said.

“After that, every 10 years, you need to have a booster for your diphtheria and tetanus and once you should have a booster for whooping cough as well, after 18 years of age. We’re seeing whooping cough, so we know you need another protection.”

Failure to be fully immunized without a valid exemption could lead to a child being suspended from school.

“We don’t want to suspend kids. We want kids to be protected and go to school. These are just reminders in case the vaccine is missing. Most kids who are not up to date can be up to date or sometimes it’s just a matter of they don’t have the record; we get the record and it’s good,” Roumeliotis said.

Last school year, approximately 3,000 seven- and 17-year-olds in Ottawa were suspended from school for having out-of-date or incomplete vaccination records.

Roumeliotis says it’s not always a case of the child not being vaccinated. Often, it’s simply that a record is missing.

“A lot of health unit websites, you can just go on and put the record in to help us know your child got vaccinated,” he said.

If your child does need a vaccine, you can check with your local public health unit or your primary care provider.

Details about childhood immunizations in Ottawa can be found on Ottawa Public Health’s website.

The Eastern Ontario Health Unit, the Renfrew County and District Health Unit, and the local health units that make up the South East Health Unit (Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington; Leeds, Grenville, and Lanark; and Hastings Prince Edward) also have details on their respective websites about routine vaccinations for schoolchildren.

Roumeliotis says routine immunizations are about protecting not only your children, but the whole community.

“We talk about it a lot but it’s really an important and vital thing you can do to protect our kids and kids around us. The more you can be up to date, the better it’s going to be,” he said.