Ontario municipalities have called for a province-wide vaccination passport as health officials say the rates of unvaccinated children in some school zones are highest in Winnipeg and Toronto.
The call by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario seeks to provide public health officials with a simple system that residents will be able to use to submit personal data that addresses vaccination rates by location.
“A local vaccine passport could allow community vaccination rates to be more accurately documented and used as a baseline indicator of how well communities are protecting their citizens,” the AMA wrote in its report released Thursday.
AMA president Peter Kelly said the province-wide vaccination passport would be “practical” for the benefit of the public.
“We want to know what is happening in our communities and what is happening to the outbreak of measles, whooping cough and whooping cough-like diseases,” he said.
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The province-wide vaccination passport is an idea that the provincial government has not yet considered.
Health Minister Eric Hoskins has previously stated his support for a vaccination database that can provide officials with information on who is not immunized as well as who is.
“A vaccine-accurate database is one of the best tools we have to provide health care to patients and residents across Ontario and around the world,” Hoskins said in 2016.
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Municipalities have also made recommendations for rates for vaccines against meningitis, HPV, chicken pox, meningococcal disease, chicken pox, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, infant tetanus, whooping cough, and hepatitis A and B.
The national government gives residents 25 personal exemptions for vaccines when they are not up to date or are not proven effective in children who are too young for some vaccines.
An exemption is also available for religious reasons that there is a clear doctor-to-consultation exemption for.
