Officials call for OHIP to cover travel vaccines

Toronto Public Health (TPH) has released a board of health report requesting that the Ministry of Health for Ontario consider publicly funding the cost of travel-related vaccinations and consultations.

Following a Toronto measles outbreak in early 2015 brought about by travellers who contracted the disease while abroad, TPH reported that the costs associated with treating the outbreak may have been prevented by vaccination awareness.

“There were only 10 cases, but we had to follow up with over 1,500 individuals,” Dr. Vinita Dubey of Toronto Public Health told PAX, explaining that the full cost to do so tallied up to $500,000. “And that doesn’t include the other healthcare costs incurred by recommending that [the potentially infected] visit their doctors, or for the individuals who visited hospitals [in response to the outbreak],” she continued.

The TPH report was compiled following two provincial reports on immunization from both the Provincial Auditor General and Ontario’s Immunization System, released in Dec 2014. Both organizations made the same recommendations, calling for a heightened awareness among the public on the importance of vaccinations, and TPH used the measles outbreak as a reason to push the initiative even further.

Although the measles vaccination is already publically funded by the Ontario Health Insurance Program (OHIP), Dubey said that travel consultations, where would-be travellers can be educated on possible health concerns related to their intended destination, are not.

The average cost of a consultation at a Toronto vaccination clinic can range from $40-$60. As such, people tend to forego them prior to travel, and as a result, remain unaware of their vaccination records or the potential for infection, increasing the risk of contracting a disease and bringing it back home.

“We know that outbreaks like measles occur,” Dubey said, “because someone, usually someone who cannot be identified, has travelled abroad, gotten infected, come back, and spreads the infection here.”

Such was the case in March 2015, where Toronto Public Health put out a public announcement warning residents about a case of hepatitis A found in a store’s stock of fresh juice.

According to Dubey, the contamination was caused by an employee who had recently contracted the infection while travelling.

“Hepatitis A can spread quite easily in a situation like that,” Dubey said. “Had that individual been vaccinated before they travelled, we could have avoided the spread of infection.” The cost of holding clinics and follow-ups with store customers who may have come in contact with the infection, Dubey added, could also have been avoided.

While Toronto Public Health doesn’t know the exact costs involved, Dubey said they do feel that the benefits in making vaccination consultations more accessible would outweigh the expenses associated with managing public contamination. She also pointed out that, when it comes to disease awareness, there is more than just the monetary benefits to consider.

“The discussion is also about how to prevent diseases for which there is no vaccine,” Dubey said, referring to chikungunya, an untreatable disease spread by mosquitos that is becoming increasingly frequent in the Caribbean. A travel consultation, she added, would cover the risks posed by such a virus, and provide advice on how to prevent infection.

The Ministry of Health for Ontario has not yet responded to TPH’s proposal, and was unavailable to comment prior to deadline.