Milestones Newsletter | Issue 8, Fall 2024
With kids back in school and the winter holidays just around the corner, the fall is an exciting season full of opportunities. However, the fall also brings health challenges – namely it marks the beginning of the respiratory illness season, which can be particularly dangerous for infants, children and those with compromised immune systems.
At PCMCH, we are committed to improving health outcomes for pregnant individuals, newborns, children, youth and their families. This mission is reflected in our actions to provide evidence-based resources to support healthcare providers and the public when dealing with pressing health challenges, such as respiratory viruses.
In alignment with the Government of Ontario’s expanded Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) infant and high-risk children prevention program, PCMCH released two comprehensive fact sheets to equip healthcare providers and parents and expectant parents with reliable information about RSV. These fact sheets focus on the health impacts of RSV on infants and high-risk children as well as immunization options to keep them healthy. As part of our efforts to reduce barriers, we translated the parent and expectant parent fact sheet into several additional languages.
This summer, in collaboration with the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council (IPHCC), PCMCH released a measles fact sheet to support Indigenous individuals who are pregnant and/or have young children. Rates of measles have recently gone up in Ontario and can be effectively reduced with immunization. The IPHCC-PCMCH resource is designed to provide the most up-to-date information about measles and immunization for communities that may be disproportionately affected.
The measles fact sheet and the RSV fact sheets can be found on PCMCH’s newly launched Respiratory Illnesses and Immunizations webpage. This webpage also includes a curated list of reliable resources from other organizations about common respiratory viruses and immunization options available. We encourage you to visit our new webpage, explore the resources, and share them with your networks.
As always, we are deeply grateful to our partners, subject matter experts, and patient and family advisors for their invaluable contributions to these efforts. Preventing the spread of respiratory viruses requires collective planning and action. Together, we can make a difference in protecting our communities.
Warmly,
Sanober