No Jab, No Play plays part in record high vaccination rates
The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph’s No Jab No Play/Pay initiative has proven to be successful with statistics revealing Aussie kids fully immunised by the age of five has hit a record high.
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EXCLUSIVE: The number of Australian children who are fully immunised has hit another record high with 94.78 per cent of five-year-olds fully vaccinated, the highest in Australia’s vaccination history.
Since the introduction of No Jab No Play/Pay initiatives championed by The Sunday and Daily Telegraph and implemented by both state and federal governments since 2014, immunisation rates have risen year on year.
The proportion of Australian children fully vaccinated at 12 months in 2012 was just 91.7 per cent.
The national target of a vaccination rate of 95 per cent achieves what is called herd immunity, which means infectious diseases do not take hold and spread.
Australia is now just 0.22 per cent off that mark according to March quarter figures and now leads the world in terms of vaccination coverage.
“Australia now also has world leading vaccination rates for children which are well above the global vaccination coverage of 85 per cent,” Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
“The latest figures show that the vast majority of parents are hearing the message about the benefits of vaccinations, and I am delighted that our public health campaigns and our immunisation programs are protecting all Australians,” he said.
The rates continue to rise across all three age groups — one, two and five year olds.
Both Victoria and Tasmania are now above 95 per cent.
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No Jab No Pay legislation, first introduced in 2015 and tightened in 2017, targeted Child Care Benefit, the Child Care Rebate and the Family Tax Benefit Part A end of year supplement for those who refused to vaccinate.
Critics of the policy have argued that remote, or lower socio-economic groups are negatively affected by the policy but coverage rates for five-year-old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children now stands at 96.66 per cent.
Toni McCaffery, who lost her baby daughter Dana to whooping cough in 2009, said the new figures would protect the vulnerable.
“The vaccination rate for five-year-olds in 2009 was 83 per cent and the child care centre was the most likely place she picked it up. There was no herd immunity.
These new figures are fantastic. Hopefully no other parent has to experience the trauma of losing a baby now,” she said.
While the rate of immunisation for five-year-olds in NSW is 94.63 per cent, a NSW Health audit of the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) found that the AIR had under reported vaccination rates and that almost 35 per cent of children reported as overdue vaccinations were actually fully vaccinated.
The audit showed that the true vaccination rate for one-year-olds was 96.2 per cent, two per cent higher than The Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) had recorded.
With measles making a comeback in the USA and countries in Europe, Australia’s No Jab No Pay policy is receiving international attention.
FULLY IMMUNISED BY AGE FIVE
Statistics by The Australian Immunisation Register.
ACT — 94.71 %
NSW — 94.63 %
VIC — 95.67 %
QLD — 94.63 %
SA — 94.72 %
WA — 93.42 %
TAS — 95.62 %
NT — 93.83 %
AUS overall — 94.78 %