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July 21, 2003

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“Vaccine Lottery Protests Health Policy”

Hamilton Spectator (www.hamiltonspectator.com) (07/18/03) P. A1; Mallan, Caroline

To highlight the Ontario provincial government’s reluctance to fund some vaccination campaigns in the region, the Haliburton-Kawartha-Pine Ridge District Health Council, located in Ontario east of Toronto, has decided to hold a lottery for 400 doses of meningitis C and pneumonia [pneumococcal] vaccinations for children in the area.  “Since the government forces parents to gamble with their children’s health by not covering the cost” of the vaccine, said Sharon Thompson, director of Communicable Disease Control for the health unit, “we thought we would also give parents the chance to gamble and hopefully win a chance to protect their children from these serious illnesses.”  The C$200 bill for the two vaccines is not covered by the provincial health department, though Ontario does pay for a number of other vaccines, including those against measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, and infant Hib.  A spokesman for the Ontario health department, Paul Cantin, said that the cost of a meningitis vaccine would be covered if there were an outbreak of the disease, but that the province is waiting for the national government to formalize its vaccine policies before changing its provincial efforts.