Postdoctoral fellow Kate Allan offers tactics to catch up on routine immunization to prevent new epidemics from cropping up

A report on “Maintaining Immunizations for School-Age Children During COVID-19,”co-authored by FIFSW-affiliated postdoctoral fellow Kate Allan, has received widespread media attention. Supervised by FIFSW professor Barbara Fallon, Allan is a fellow with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases (CVPD).

“Ensuring that children receive missed routine immunizations is critical to preventing drops in vaccine coverage and avoiding disease outbreaks in Ontario,” Allen tells DLSPH writer Heidi Singer. “Prior to the pandemic, we were already falling short of our national coverage goals of 95 percent. These coverage gaps will likely persist or worsen, and the numbers don’t have to fall far before we see outbreaks of previously well-controlled, serious diseases.”

The report was covered by CTV News, CityTV,  the Toronto Star, and CFRA 580 Ottawa (from 1:15 to 6:00).