Province prepares for measles catch-up campaign at clinics, schools around B.C.

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – It’s been a little over a month since the province unveiled a plan to “catch-up” un- and under-vaccinated children amid measles outbreaks in B.C. and around the world.

The health minister says though the bulk of clinics in schools have yet to take place, the preparation work is well underway.

“In each health authority, letters have been sent to students and families in the hundreds of thousands already,” Minister Adrian Dix said.

Staff are following up with both letters and phone calls when the immunization records are unavailable or incomplete.

“The other advantage to what we’re doing now — this sort of systematic process, school by school, community by community — will enable us to … implement the mandatory registration program that we’re going to bring forward in the fall,” he said.

RELATED: BC Liberals demand more access to measles vaccine; health minister argues it’s already easily accessible

“Both going over the records and in some cases we are contacting parents where records aren’t available so those children may well have been immunized but records aren’t in place for that.”

On May 1st, the school-based clinics will start in earnest

“In Vancouver Coastal Health, 313 school-based clinics are proposed but there are also opportunities for people to go to public health clinics and obviously the pharmacies to get caught up.”

He says the work will get easier over time, and adds the commitment is to offer everyone the opportunity to get vaccinated.

“Everybody should be offered the opportunity to get immunized. We’re going to do this in a systematic way over months. It’s going to involve public health information, pharmacies, public health clinics … all over the province.”

RELATED: B.C. residents concerned about measles outbreak but 23% doubtful of vaccines: poll

In the BC Interior, there will be about 80 clinics a week for five weeks to reach all 400 schools there. The clinics will focus on school-aged children between the ages of five and 17.

He admits 80 clinics a week in one region is an ambitious plan. “But this is something that we do. Immunization programs are something that happen every year in schools, in public health units. But in this case, we are putting very significant resources on this basis so we can get ourselves caught up.”

“Immunization programs are something that happen every year in schools and every year in public health units, so this is something we do,” he explains. “In this case, we are putting very significant resources on this basis so we can get ourselves caught up.

“It’s important to understand that this work will be required over time, not just in this period,” Dix added. “Every year there are new students, every year there are new babies and every year we have to keep people immunized.”

He notes this will be a consistent effort over time, and believes this effort will help later on.

Dix says the first update of the numbers of vaccinations needed and given will come the first week of next month.