Children may face five more injections

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Children may face five more injections

06/16/2002

CHILDREN could by early next year be receiving another five injections of new vaccines to help prevent diseases such as chicken pox and a less common form of meningoccocal disease.

More than 90 per cent of ACT children up to two years old are already fully immunised under the current free vaccination schedule, according to the ACT Department of Health and Community Care.

 

The Federal Government is also being asked to consider adding to the free schedule vaccines for chicken pox, meningoccocal disease type C and pneumococcal disease, which causes problems such as middle-ear infections. ACT immunisation coordinator Yvonne Epping said the vaccines could be introduced by February or March, depending on whether or not the Government agreed to fund them.

Deputy director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research at Westmead Children's Hospital, Dr Peter McIntyre, said the new vaccines would probably involve another five injections in the first two years of life.

The National Health and Medical Research Council, which makes recommendations to the Government about the schedule, has 'sought to reduce the number of injections given at each immunisation session through the use of new combination vaccines'.

Consideration is also being given to a booster vaccination for adults to prevent whooping cough outbreaks.

In the ACT, there were 79 cases of whooping cough between June 2001 and May 2002, 85 per cent of which occurred in people aged 15 and over.

There were also 21 cases of pneumococcal disease reported for the same time period and seven cases of meningococcal disease, four of which were type B, which cannot be prevented by vaccine.