Scott Morrison defends childhood vaccine rollout but says it’s up to parents to use them

Scott Morrison and Greg Hunt have defended the childhood vaccine rollout saying there will be enough jabs — but parents have to use them.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defended the roll-out of school vaccines, saying there would be enough jabs to go around and it was up to parents to use them.

Just one in four children were vaccinated by the end of last week and doctors have warned it will be impossible for them to vaccinate all 5-11 year olds before school returns in just over a week because they only receive 200 vaccines per fortnight.

Even if they could, children would only be partially vaccinated because there is an eight week gap between their first and second doses.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said by the end of next week, “we will have more vaccinations in the field than there are children”.

And he urged parents who could not get a GP appointment to use state run mass vaccination clinics which had available appointments.

Younger children are more troublesome to vaccinate and most chemists are refusing to do childhood vaccines claiming they don’t get paid enough for the time it takes.

Parents are more likely to want to use their family doctor for the procedure because it is less stressful environment than a state run mass vaccination clinic.

GPs say they can’t vaccinate every kid by the time school returns Picture: iStock

Australia was vaccinating children aged 5-11 faster than any other country in the world, a spokesman for Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

Even though our 5-11 program only started less than a fortnight ago, “we have now surpassed the percentage of 5-11s that have had a first dose in Israel (program started 28 November last year, and has currently 24.5 per cent first dose coverage of 5-11s),” he said.

The US is only sitting at 28.5 per cent for that group despite starting in October so we will pass them in the next 2-3 days,” the spokesman said.

The daily vaccination rates in Australia were also ahead of the US.

“Their fastest in Australian equivalent terms was 351,428, he said.

Despite GP’s saying they were limited to ordering 200 doses of children’s vaccines per fortnight the Prime Minister’s office said “the program allocates doses to as many GPs and pharmacists that want them to ensure there’s a fair spread of vaccines”.

“Rather than just sending all the doses to a few big clinics in the cities that would disadvantage regional Australians for example,” he said.

Originally published as Scott Morrison defends childhood vaccine rollout but says it’s up to parents to use them