Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination coverage among Canadian children has remained stable, according to a national survey released Monday by Statistics Canada. As of March 2021, 92% of 2-year-old toddlers had been vaccinated against measles and polio, percentages “relatively unchanged from 2019”. The only marked increase: the rate of vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV), which rose from 73% to 81% among 14-year-old boys.
Provincially, immunization rates are “similar” to 2017 levels in “most provinces and territories,” says the Childhood National Immunization Coverage Survey. In Quebec, vaccination rates in 2021 were 76.2% for diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, 93.2% for measles, 80.6% for hepatitis B and 89.9% for chicken pox .
According to Statistics Canada, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have had “little influence on national vaccination rates” in 2021. The survey, however, highlights that “many children of the target population would have received some or all of the recommended vaccines” before the onset of the health crisis.
The fact remains that the vaccination target set by Ottawa, 95% coverage by 2025, has still not been reached among two-year-old children in the country.
Parents and the pandemic
Has the pandemic had an influence on the decision of parents to have their child vaccinated or not? “None,” 89% of parents and guardians with a two-year-old child told Statistics Canada. Nearly 8% said they were “more inclined” to childhood vaccination and 3.5% “less inclined” due to the health crisis.
In Quebec, 91.4% of parents and guardians say they were not influenced by the pandemic when it came time to immunize their child. But 4.3% said they were “more inclined” and 4.3% “less inclined”.
For the first time, the National Childhood Immunization Coverage Survey collected data on immunization rates among various racialized groups. She notes that “overall”, two-year-old children of Chinese and Filipino origin had in 2021 “a higher vaccination rate than non-racialized people”.
Black people had “lower rates for most recommended vaccines.” For example, writes Statistics Canada, “73% of black people had received the recommended four doses of pneumococcal vaccine by age 2, compared to 86% of non-racialized people”.
However, “no significant difference” was observed between the vaccination rates of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children aged 2 years, except for the poliomyelitis vaccine: 95% of Aboriginal children had received it, compared to 92% of non-indigenous children.
Last spring, UNICEF Canada sounded the alarm and reported that coverage among toddlers had plummeted during the health crisis in 112 countries. The charity was concerned about declining public confidence in childhood vaccinations since the COVID-19 pandemic. It reported that 82.3% of the Canadian population considered it important to vaccinate children in 2021, compared to 90.5% in 2019.
According to UNICEF, measles cases worldwide more than doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year. During the same period, the number of children paralyzed after contracting poliomyelitis increased by 16%.