The vaccine Ottawa children receive as part of Ontario's routine meningococcal immunization program is changing, and local doctors and nurse practitioners have been formally notified of what comes next.
In a notice dated August 20, 2026, Ottawa Public Health informed physicians and nurse practitioners that the Ministry of Health is transitioning the province's routine childhood immunization program to quadrivalent conjugate meningococcal vaccines, known as Men-C-ACYW. The move discontinues the monovalent conjugate meningococcal serogroup C vaccine, known as Men-C-C.
The memo, from Dr. Laura Bourns, Deputy Medical Officer of Health, explains that the serogroup C vaccine is being discontinued and will no longer be available in Canada.
Parents and families in Ottawa should not see any change in how or where their children are immunized. What is changing is the product used in the publicly funded program.
According to the notice, the transition to Men-C-ACYW is happening because of manufacturing changes rather than any shift in the epidemiology of the disease. In other words, the province is not responding to a change in how meningococcal illness is behaving in the community — the old vaccine is simply going out of production.
Following the switch, two doses of Men-C-ACYW will be publicly funded under the routine immunization program, the memo states.
The notice was issued to Ottawa physicians and nurse practitioners so that frontline providers are aware of the change before they encounter the new vaccine in their practices. Families with questions about their children's immunizations are typically directed to their health-care providers or to Ottawa Public Health.
The shift aligns Ontario's routine program with a product that covers four meningococcal serogroups — A, C, Y and W — instead of the single serogroup C covered by the outgoing vaccine.
Ottawa Public Health recently refreshed its website, and the agency has warned that some links, redirects and documents may be temporarily affected during the transition. Residents who run into broken pages or missing documents are being asked to report the issues through the agency's website feedback form.
The full details of the vaccine transition are laid out in a letter to health-care providers, which the agency says was issued following the Ministry of Health's decision to change Ontario's meningococcal vaccine program, according to a notice from Ottawa Public Health.
