Immunising your child
Why should children be immunised?
Being immunised (vaccinated) to protect against catching childhood diseases and other contagious conditions is an important part of your child’s health. Some childhood diseases can have devastating and disabling effects on a child (some of which are permanent), even including death. However, vaccinations give your child immunity to diseases and protect them from suffering from the adverse effects of that disease.
The more people who are vaccinated against a specific disease, the smaller the reservoir of available hosts in the population becomes for the disease to live in. This is how diseases such as polio become eradicated in developed countries: by mass immunisation programmes of the population of that country.
In the past, Australia had a bad track record for childhood immunisation rates. But according to figures from up to 30 September 2008, 91 per cent of one-year-old children and 93 per cent of 2-year-old children in Australia were fully immunised. However, it is important that immunisation remains a priority for Australian children, so that illnesses such as diphtheria, mumps and hepatitis B are kept under control.
Risks of vaccines compared with risks of illness
There is a very small risk of a serious reaction to some vaccines, but this is always much less of a risk than the effects of the disease if contracted. For example:
- one in 10 people who has the diphtheria vaccine has a fever or inflammation at the injection site, but one in every 15 people who catches diphtheria dies from the disease;
- about one in every 600,000 people will have a serious allergic response to hepatitis B vaccine, but one in every 4 people who are chronic carriers of hepatitis B will develop cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer; and
- one in every 3 million people who get the mumps vaccine will develop mild inflammation of the brain, but one in every 200 children who catch mumps will get inflammation of the brain and one in every 5 males who catch mumps after puberty develops inflammation of the testicles and some of these males become infertile.
Your doctor can provide you with information on the risks of developing a disease compared with having the vaccination.
The National Immunisation Program Schedule
The current version of the National Immunisation Program Schedule was released in July 2007. All of the vaccines on this schedule are provided free by the Government (for example, through your local doctor or local community health centre).
Australian Childhood Immunisation Register
The Health Insurance Commission collects data on the immunisation status of all children under 7 years of age. You can check your child’s status on the register by requesting a free ‘Immunisation History Statement’ which is posted to you. It doesn’t matter where in Australia that your child was immunised.
You can do this on the website for the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, or by phoning 1800 653 809 (free call). You will need to give your child’s Medicare number.
Last Reviewed: 12 October 2009
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