Immunisation coverage annual report, 2015

Abstract

This 9th annual immunisation coverage report shows data for 2015 derived from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register and the National Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Program Register. This report includes coverage data for ‘fully immunised’ and by individual vaccines at standard age milestones and timeliness of receipt at earlier ages according to Indigenous status. Overall, ‘fully immunised’ coverage has been mostly stable at the 12- and 24-month age milestones since late 2003, but at 60 months of age, coverage reached its highest ever level of 93% during 2015. As in previous years, coverage for ‘fully immunised’ at 12 and 24 months of age among Indigenous children was 3.4% and 3.3% lower than for non-Indigenous children overall, respectively. In 2015, 77.8% of Australian females aged 15 years had 3 documented doses of HPV vaccine (jurisdictional range 68.0–85.6%), and 86.2% had at least one dose, compared to 73.4% and 82.7%, respectively, in 2014. The differential of on-time vaccination between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children in 2015 diminished progressively from 18.4% for vaccines due at 12 months to 15.7% for those due at 24 months of age. In 2015, the proportion of children whose parents had registered an objection to vaccination was 1.2% at the national level, with large regional variations. This was a marked decrease from 1.8% in 2014 and the lowest rate of registered vaccination objection nationally since 2007 when it was 1.1%. Medical contraindication exemptions for Australia were more than double in 2015 compared with the previous year (635 to 1,401).