Doctors urge parents to get routine vaccines for kids following pandemic disruptions

Pediatricians are concerned about possible outbreaks of preventable diseases if too many children were underimmunized or not vaccinated at all while public health clinics focused on COVID-19 vaccines. Younger children missed appointments at doctors’ offices while physicians were seeing patients virtually and public health clinics, which mostly administer routine vaccines for kids outside of the Lower Mainland region of the province, were busy with COVID-19 shots, Naus said. The Public Health Agency of Canada said Canadian studies have found immunization coverage declined during the pandemic for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Nova Scotia Health said its last report on childhood vaccines was completed three years ago, and numbers have fallen during the pandemic. Canada recently had 84 per cent uptake of the second dose of the measles vaccine.