A Health Surveillance Update on Canadian Children and Youth

AUTHORS:
A. Bentsi-Enchill, MB, ChB, MSc
M. Litt, BScN, RN, MHSc

Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

Immunization is one of the greatest achievements of mankind and one of the most cost-efficient prevention tools.⁽¹⁾ The accurate surveillance of vaccine coverage in the Canadian population and the burden and trends of specific vaccine-preventable diseases is a central component of the overall immunization effort. The indicators selected to reflect this immunization effort are vaccine coverage, measles incidence and pertussis incidence. The vaccine coverage, presented for ages 2 years and 7 years, demonstrates both the achievement of high coverage with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine as well as the challenges that remain to increase the population coverage with diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT), polio and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccines. The measles indicator provides an excellent example of the goals accomplished by immunization programs in the identification of a problem and the implementation of changes to the childhood immunization schedule to address the problem. Finally, an assessment of the pertussis incidence highlights the fact that vaccine-preventable diseases continue to occur among Canadian children. The ability to track vaccine coverage and the occurrence of these and other vaccine-preventable diseases provides valuable information to those responsible for the planning, implementation and evaluation of immunization programs in Canada.

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