Ontario’s Top Doctor Calls for Modernized Vaccine Registry and National Immunization Schedule

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, is sounding the alarm: Canada urgently needs a national immunization schedule and centralized vaccine registry to protect against vaccine-preventable diseases that are resurging across the country, such as measles.

Why a Centralized Vaccine Registry Matters

Currently, each province and territory runs its own immunization schedule and data system. This “patchwork” approach means:

• Parents are left as the primary record keepers.
• Healthcare providers often lack complete information.
• Public health officials struggle to identify coverage gaps or respond effectively to outbreaks.
• Monitoring vaccine safety and effectiveness becomes difficult.

Dr. Moore pointed out that Ontario is falling behind provinces like British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia, which have already modernized their systems.

The Impact on Families and Public Health

Dr. Vinita Dubey of Toronto Public Health highlighted how outdated Ontario’s vaccine reporting process is: parents submit records to schools, which then pass them to public health—where staff manually enter the data. This creates delays, errors, and unnecessary stress for families.

Meanwhile, childhood vaccination rates have dropped since the COVID-19 pandemic, and skepticism toward routine immunizations has doubled between 2019 and 2024. With measles and other preventable illnesses reappearing, the risks of fragmented vaccine tracking are clear.

The Case for a National Approach

A national vaccine registry and harmonized schedule would:

• Ensure consistency across provinces.
• Improve outbreak response.
• Prevent duplicate shots.
• Reduce healthcare costs through bulk vaccine purchasing.
• Give families easy digital access to their records.

The federal government has started connecting registries, but Ontario still stores records in three separate systems: one for schools and childcare, one for COVID-19 vaccines, and one for physician and pharmacy records.

Why This Matters for Travelers

At Destinations Travel Clinic, we know that vaccination gaps don’t just affect local health—they affect global health. Travelers who aren’t up to date on routine immunizations can unknowingly bring infectious diseases into Canada or spread them abroad.

That’s why we stress:

• Confirming your immunization records before travel.
• Ensuring your vaccinations meet both Canadian guidelines and destination-specific requirements.
• Seeking expert advice from travel medicine professionals who can coordinate with your family doctor and public health systems.

A modernized, national vaccine registry would not only simplify care for Canadians at home but also make it easier for travelers to protect themselves and the communities they visit.

At Destinations Travel and Immunization Clinic, we help bridge these gaps by keeping thorough vaccination records, ensuring you’re fully protected before your journey, and advising on vaccines not always tracked by public systems (such as yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, or rabies).