Measles is making headlines again, and not for reasons anyone would celebrate. In Canada, the sudden spike in cases has exposed more than just waning immunity—it’s laid bare the absence of a unified system to track and respond to vaccine-preventable diseases.
Canada’s outgoing chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, spent her career navigating public health crises both visible and unseen. As she steps away from the national stage, her message is clear: the country’s fragmented approach to vaccine record-keeping leaves dangerous gaps. While provinces and territories cobbled together digital records for COVID-19, each system remains an island, limiting the nation’s ability to track who is protected and who remains vulnerable.
The stakes are not theoretical. Measles thrives in places where vaccine coverage is patchy, but no one can say with certainty where those blind spots are. As Dr. Tam observed, “we don’t actually know exactly where the situation with vaccine coverage lies,” a reality that complicates rapid response when outbreaks flare up. The lessons of COVID-19—where wasted doses and delayed data hampered efforts—still loom large.
Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a Toronto physician, contends that the lack of a national registry comes at a steep price: wasted vaccines, missed opportunities, and, most critically, preventable illness. She points to the simplicity of anonymizing data, arguing that data-sharing fears can be overcome without sacrificing privacy. Peer nations like Norway, Germany, and France have long mastered interoperable registries, demonstrating that national cooperation is neither fantasy nor folly.
Yet political inertia lingers. Some provincial leaders drag their feet, wary of letting Ottawa peek behind the curtain of their health systems. Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer, notes there is broad consensus on the goal, but “the devil is always in the details.”
The pandemic proved Canadians can innovate at speed when pressed. The tools to build a national vaccine registry exist. What remains is the collective will to weave those threads together—before the next outbreak finds the gaps.
References:
National vaccine registry needed amid measles resurgence, Canada’s outgoing top doctor says
