The Minister for Health has marked World Immunisation Week this week by calling on families to ensure their children are vaccinated against preventable diseases.
The Minister, Greg Hunt, said that while Australia’s vaccination rate for five-year-olds was among the best in the world at 94 per cent “it still needed to increase”.
Mr Hunt said World Immunisation Week was an opportunity to refocus attention on ensuring all children in Australia were safe from preventable diseases by having them immunised.
“This year’s theme, Protected Together, #VaccinesWork, encourages everyone to make a greater effort to increase immunisation coverage to protect our kids,” Mr Hunt said.
“Since the introduction of vaccination for children in Australia in 1932, deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases have fallen by 99 per cent — despite a threefold increase in Australia’s population over that period.”
He said it was proven that immunisation saved lives worldwide and it had been estimated that immunisation programs prevented approximately three million deaths each year.
The Minister said there were more than 19 million unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children in the world, putting them at serious risk of potentially fatal diseases like polio, measles, whooping cough and the mumps.
Minister for Indigenous Health, and Aged Care, Ken Wyatt said the national immunisation rate for five-year-old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (96.2 per cent) was higher than for all Australian children aged five (94 per cent).
“This is great news, but we can’t rest until all five-year-old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are protected against vaccine preventable diseases,” Mr Wyatt said.
“The elderly are more likely to get diseases like the flu, pneumonia, and shingles — and can have complications that may lead to long-term illness, hospitalisation and even death.”
He said free vaccines were offered under the National Immunisation Program for people 65 years and over against the flu, shingles and pneumonia.
