Parliament heard this week from one of New Zealand’s foremost immunisation experts and she brought some simple messages about vaccination, epidemics and infant deaths.
Dr Nikki Turner is Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre and an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland. She briefed the health committee this week after their annual reviews of DHBs had repeatedly raised the issue of vaccination rates and epidemics.
Dr Nikki Turner, Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre at the University of Auckland, briefs the Health Select Committee Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
They wanted answers about why vaccination rates had fallen and what could be done.
The fall in vaccination was caused by three interlocking things, said Dr Turner, confidence in the healthcare system; convenience; and complacency.
Anti-vax sentiment is apparently responsible for only a couple of percent of the ten percent decline in vaccination rates.
So what can be done to raise immunisation rates to again reach a herd immunity level?
Dr Turner does not recommend mandatory vaccination which she says, “runs the risk of polarising the most high-risk, high-vulnerable communities.”
She points to Australia’s example, where mandation was brought in for beneficiaries which raised immunisation rates by a couple of percent but “the downside is they have driven some families to fear and greater mistrust.”
Research suggests that mandation had to fit within the culture of a country or you get kick-back and being told what to do is not within New Zealand’s culture, says Dr Turner.
Labour MP Louisa Wall chairing the Health Select Committee Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
She agreed with the Health Committee chair, Labour MP Louisa Wall that a better approach was default provision, but where families could opt-out. If they did not, children would be vaccinated within the education system.
But the clearest message was that getting vaccinated needed to be easier.
“Busy, low income parents cannot just roll in the door when it suits a [general] practice. We need to [be] extending our opportunistic vaccination sites. After-hours should be vaccinating, [emergency departments] should be vaccinating, big community sites, where communities collect should develop a culture of offering vaccination clinics after hours and on weekends”.
She also encouraged an increase in vaccination by pharmacies, by midwives and antenatal sessions. Particularly because “the first vaccination event for the infant” is before they are even born.
“We can immunise from… sixteen weeks pregnancy for [whooping cough] and newborn babies will not die.”
The effect of pregnancy vaccinations persist for two months for whooping cough and three months for flu, which gives new families time to get first post-natal jabs for infants.
