The B.C. government’s new measles vaccination catch-up plan has doubled the number of vaccines given to students in the same month last year.
The B.C. health ministry says 129 in-school vaccination clinics were held last month, along with 1,343 community clinics, leading to 3,807 doses of measles vaccines administered to K-12 students since the program began April 1.
Those doses constitute a 106 per cent increase in vaccines over last April, the ministry announced Thursday.
The province also sent more than 550,000 letters to parents of students, notifying them of the catch-up program.
“This preparation was necessary to effectively plan the immunization clinics, which focus on students who are under-immunized or unimmunized for measles,” the ministry said in a news release.
The catch-up program is scheduled to run until June with the hope that 95 per cent of students will be immunized before mandatory proof of vaccinations is required in B.C. schools in September.
There are 594 more in-school clinics planned before the program is finished, as well as 1,912 public health clinics and 148 additional community immunization clinics, according to health officials.
As of May 6, 29 confirmed cases of measles have been reported among B.C. residents this year, including eight cases on Vancouver Island.
