Qld children’s vaccination rates plummet in wake of pandemic

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has warned of a child health “crisis we can see coming” in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Fentiman: A sinister threat

The number of Queensland children vaccinated against the flu has halved since 2020, data has revealed, with the state’s progress on childhood immunisation regressing in the aftermath of the pandemic.

The dwindling uptake of vaccines has been described as a “crisis we can see coming” by Health Minister Shannon Fentiman as experts and patients meet for the state’s first vaccination summit.

Ms Fentiman said the meeting on Friday was “part of an ongoing effort to chart a course forward for boosting vaccination rates and combating vaccine fatigue and misinformation”.

Australian Immunisation Register data shows 155,187 children under the age of five were vaccinated against the flu in Queensland during the 2020 flu season, but as of 2023 this dwindled to 86,458.

Childhood vaccine coverage for one year olds and five years olds in Queensland has also fallen to levels last seen in 2016, though it remains higher than 93 per cent.

“Since 2020, the numbers are going down. Across virtually every state and age group, fewer children are getting fully vaccinated against illnesses like polio, tetanus, measles, mumps and rubella,” Ms Fentiman said.

A UNICEF report earlier this year found that the number of Australians who believed childhood vaccines were important has fallen by 7.5 per cent since pre-pandemic levels.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman

“Between March and early July this year, the number of Queenslanders getting vaccinated against the flu dropped 18.6 per cent. Only after Queensland announced we would make vaccines free for the 2023 flu season did vaccination rates began to increase.”

She said the trends “cannot continue”.

Mater infectious diseases director Dr Paul Griffin, who is attending the vaccination summit, said vaccine fatigue was a “complex problem”.

He said the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the misinformation that came along with it had impacted vaccination rate.

“We need to be better at countering misinformation … and be better at providing access and availability to vaccines,” Dr Griffin said.

Dr Griffin welcomed the vaccination summit and hoped it would be the start of “some significant momentum moving forward”.

The state government in mid-July made access to flu vaccines free for all Queenslanders until the end of August in a bid to increase protection amid a horror season.

It was the second time in as many years the state government had opted to open up access to flu vaccines, though the decision came later in the 2023 season than before.

Medical experts have been calling for a “long-term” plan for flu jabs so the sector isn’t left scrambling each year — a move which will require federal government intervention.

Originally published as Qld children’s vaccination rates plummet in wake of pandemic