A new vaccination campaign sponsored by Immunize Canada is kicking off with a poster designed by a grade six student from Regina.
Iain Mackenzie is the Saskatchewan regional winner in a national poster contest and was invited to the Saskatchewan Legislative Building last week to showcase his work. Mackenzie’s poster will be used on government social media sites to encourage people to vaccinate.
“We had the idea of putting a dart board to dart the disease,” said Mackenzie. “Immunization is important because it is destroying several diseases and it’s just helping the world.”
Recently an outbreak of measles has spread across North America. Although the disease was declared eradicated in 2000, over 500 cases have been reported in the United States, and more than two dozen in Canada.
Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, suggests that the sudden rise could be due to parents that have not been diligent about vaccinating their children.
"Our refusal rate is very low. It's less than one per cent,” said Shahab. “The fact that 95 per cent of children are vaccinated by the time they finish high school seems to suggest that parents are sometimes too busy to keep their appointment."
Based on a report by Wayne Mantyka
