How No Jab campaigns have saved the lives of Aussie kids
Australia is now effectively safe from deadly diseases polio, measles and rubella — and it’s thanks to The Sunday Telegraph’s No Jab campaigns. SEARCH YOUR SUBURB’S VAX RATE.
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Australia is now effectively safe from deadly diseases polio, measles and rubella — and it’s thanks to The Sunday Telegraph’s No Jab campaigns.
Australia has surpassed the gold standard of a 95 per cent vaccination rate, known as “herd immunity” according to the National Centre for Immunisation and Research and Surveillance.
Australian children at age five are at their highest level of protection against vaccine preventable disease ever.
While the official rate is 94.5 per cent in the NCIRS 2017 Immunisation Coverage Report released last week, an audit on the accuracy of the Immunisation Register found that 14 per cent of children listed as overdue were actually up to date.
Professor Kristine Macartney, Director of NCIRS and senior author on the report said that means Australia had made it to herd immunity, a state where infectious diseases are unable to take hold because so many of the population is immunised.
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“We are essentially at or over 95 per cent when you factor in the underreporting,” she said. “
The Sunday Telegraph began its No Jab No Play campaign in 2013, which stepped up into a No Jab No Pay campaign.
Despite criticism of the campaigns, these led to both state and federal governments changing child care enrolment practices and cutting family payments to anti-vaxxers.
“The increases in coverage documented at 12 and 60 months of age are likely to have been contributed to by a range of measures, including the federal government ‘No Jab No Pay’ policy (implemented from 1 January 2016) and ‘No Jab No Play’ policies implemented in some states,” the report said.
“I do believe No Jab No Play/Pay has in part been the driver of a lot of this, it has helped improve immunisation coverage and translated to more effort on behalf of the government,” Prof Macartney said.
The surveillance report noted that vaccination coverage for 12-month-olds had been stagnant at about 90 per cent until 2014, the year NSW introduced No Jab No Play legislation, which toughened entry in to child care for unvaccinated children.
The result was a 4.3 per cent improvement up to “its highest ever recorded level of 94.3% in June 2017”.
Australian Medical Association president Dr Tony Bartone said the result was ‘a good place to be’ and agreed No Jab No Play/Pay had been the antidote to complacency.
“Absolutely, education and information can only go so far, sometimes you have to look at other options and No Jab No Play/pay has strengthened the situation and I made no bones about how important these strategies are. 95 per cent is a great result but we can’t take our eye off the ball, we can’t forget the iron lungs of past,” he said.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said NSW was the first to run with No Jab No Play and the state was now reaping the benefits.
“The Sunday Telegraph kicked off the idea of No Jab No Play and every one of us is now benefiting from that campaign. We’ve closed in on 95 per cent vaccination rates and that means our kids are among the safest in the world,” Mr Hazzard said.
Originally published as How No Jab campaigns have saved the lives of Aussie kids
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