With vaccination rates steadily declining since COVID-19, Interior Health held a vaccination fun fair for kindergarteners in West Kelowna on Tuesday.
Public Health Officer Fatemeh Sabet said routine vaccination rates are declining across the board, particularly among infants and young children in British Columbia.
The vaccination rate for 2-year-olds has fallen from about 75% in 2019 to about 68%. Over the same period, the number of 7-year-olds vaccinated fell from 67% to about 56%.
“This is a trend we don't want to see,” Sabe said.
“We want to encourage everyone to check their immunization records and get the vaccines they need if they are not up to date.”
Interior Health has a goal of immunizing at least 70 per cent of seven-year-olds and at least 90 per cent of two-year-olds in British Columbia.
Interior Health immunizations protect infants and children from more than a dozen potentially serious diseases, including measles, tetanus and polio.
Measles has recently flared up again in eastern Canada and parts of the United States, and the total number of cases in 2024 is already higher than last year.
“There's been a lot of talk in the media about the resurgence of measles, but I think we've done everything we can to prevent the risk of infection and we're really just getting on with it,” said the local mother of two. said his mother, Brittany Swanepoel. Visited the clinic with her daughter.
“(My daughter) is going to have even more exposure while she's at school, so we're just trying to prevent chickenpox and all the other beautiful bugs that circulate among our little ones. ” she continued.
Both Swanepoel and Interior Health believe in trusting your doctor and doing your own research, and the recent drop in vaccination rates is due to the spread of misinformation on social media. He blames it.
“I think there's a lot of research supporting this, but just because one article or podcast says there's another way, there's a lot more to be said about the research behind vaccination. I think so. I was a little nervous about the influx of people not getting vaccinated and what that meant and who I was going to be surrounded by at school. That's why I wanted to get this done in advance. I wanted to,” Swainpoel said.
Interior Health says it plans to hold more vaccination fan fairs in the near future to keep more people up to date on vaccinations.
Vaccination rates in medical service areas
2 year old (target 90%):
Overall IH: 68.5% East Kootenay: 71.9% Kootenay Boundary: 66.6% Okanagan: 68% Thompson-Cariboo-Shuswap: 68.7%
7 year olds (target 70%):
Overall IH: 56.3% East Kootenay: 64.7% Kootenay Boundary: 54.8% Okanagan: 53.2% Thompson-Cariboo-Shuswap: 58.6%
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