Childhood immunizations drop during COVID-19

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 62, No. 6, July August 2020, Page 209 News COVID-19

ImmunizeBC is recommending that physicians who provide routine childhood vaccinations contact the parents of their young patients to bring their vaccines up to date. The BCCDC has developed a document for physicians (Continuity, Prioritization and Safe Delivery of Immunization Services During COVID-19 Response) which provides guidance on infant and childhood immunization programs, as well as those for adults. Priority immunizations are the infant series, including the doses beginning at 2 months of age, and the 12-month doses.

Physicians who do not usually provide immunization services directly but have pediatric or high-risk adult patients in their practice can encourage parents and others to continue with immunization services through their local health unit.

. Childhood immunizations drop during COVID-19. BCMJ, Vol. 62, No. 6, July, August, 2020, Page(s) 209 - News, COVID-19.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply