To: / Primary Care Teams, Health Professionals
From: / Rayoni Keith, Manager, Immunisation
Subject: / Coverage update, Immunisation Week, Changes to the National Immunisation Schedule, Vaccinator Training, Influenza, National Cold Chain Standards, Other communicable diseases, Bowel Screening.
Coverage update – teenage immunisation
This time of year isbusy for practices, especially during the influenza immunisation programme and providing HPV immunisation to boys and young men. While the majority of HPV immunisation is delivered through schools, we can see from our preliminary data that practices are making a growing contribution in this area for young people too old for school based immunisation. A big thank you from the Ministry for this effort – it makes an important difference to our HPV immunisation rates, which have risen from around 55 percent to more than 65 percent since 2014, and of course to young people’s protection against HPV-related cancers later in life.
In most areas, all stocks of the quadrivalent HPV vaccine have been distributed to practices, and new orders will be filled with Gardasil 9. Patients can begin HPV immunisation with Gardasil and complete with Gardasil9. Medsafe have published a useful information sheet about the safety and effectiveness of Gardasil 9: www.medsafe.govt.nz/Consumers/educational-material/gardasil9QandA.asp.
Regardless of which HPV vaccine (HPV4 or HPV9) is given, the recommended vaccination schedule is the same:
2 doses, at 0 and 6–12 months for individuals aged 14 years and under.
3 doses, at 0, 2 and 6 months, for individuals aged 15 - 26 years inclusive.
3 doses, at 0, 2 and 6 months, for high risk individuals (confirmed HIV infection and transplant patients) aged 9-26 inclusive.
Immunisation Week 2017
This year, Immunisation Week will be held from 1-7 May, and will focus on immunisation for older children. The week is a great opportunity to remind parents of older children and teens that their children may need to catch up on Tdap, HPV, MMR or any other childhood vaccines they may have missed. Through our publicity, we will also be reminding parents that chickenpox immunisation will be funded at age 15 months from 1 July 2017.
With measles outbreaks underway in Europe and recent mumps cases in Auckland, MMR immunisation for those who missed out as young children in the early 2000sremains important.
Changes to the National Immunisation Schedule
The Ministry’s information resources to support the upcoming schedule changes on 1 July 2017 are in production and should be ready to order from HealthEd in May. These include updated Immunisation Schedule cards, posters, booklets and leaflets. We have developed a new leaflet to support chickenpox immunisation, which will be available to order from HealthEd shortly.
The Immunisation Handbook is being revised, and the new 2017 edition will be published online in late May with the printed version being sent to providers in mid to late June.
The Immunisation Advisory Centre has produced several short videos about the schedule changes,which may be of interest to providers:
- “National Immunisation Schedule – 2017 Changes” -
- “Chickenpox – Disease and Vaccine” -
- “Four in a row – Best practice for multiple vaccines” -
GlaxoSmithKline have also produced resources for health professionals to support the vaccines they supply, which are available for order at
Vaccinator Training
Local immunisation training sessions have started on the 2017 National Immunisation Schedule – please contact your local Immunisation Coordinator for more information.
Influenza
H3N2 has been prevalent in the Northern Hemisphere over their winter. If New Zealand follows the same pattern in 2017, our elderly may bemore likely to be more severely affected.
SHIVERS research from 2015 suggests that during that winter about a quarter of New Zealand’s population tested positive for influenza. However, most of this group (80 percent) were asymptomatic and did not report any illness. This means that a large proportion of the population is capable of spreading influenza without realising that they are ill themselves. Influenza immunisation is therefore important for anyone in contact with those who are more vulnerable.
National Standards for Vaccine Storage and Transportation for Immunisation Providers 2017
The Ministry is pleased to advise that the above Standards have been published and the associated documentation for cold chain accreditation/compliance has been updated. The new Standards are available for download at www.health.govt.nz/coldchainand incorporate many of the recommendations developed since the original guidelines were published in 2012. Thank you to all the members of the primary health care and wider health sector who took the opportunity to provide feedback on the Standards.
While most of the Standards will be familiar to you, the following points are new:
- Vaccine fridges should bereplaced every 10 years.
- All providers need to have an electronic data logger, which continuously records the refrigerator temperature at set intervals (no more than 10 minutes between recordings, 5 minute intervals are recommended). This data needs to be reviewed every week. Whenever there is a daily temperature recording that is outside the +2˚C to +8°C range, appropriate actions need to be taken and documented.
- With an increase in vaccine stock in your refrigerators, due to the influenza vaccine and upcoming National Immunisation Schedule changes, it is important to ensure good stock management and rotation. Providers should have no more than four weeks of stock at any time and may choose to order more frequently (all providers get two free deliveries of National Schedule Vaccines every month and can order influenza vaccine more frequently) during the influenza programme.
- Specific requirements are set out in the Standards for the monitoring of chilly bins.
If you have any concerns regarding your vaccine storage and transportation please contact your Immunisation/Cold Chain Coordinator.
Other communicable diseases
Please see the Auckland Regional Public Health Service’s website for more information regarding typhoid cases in the area www.arphs.govt.nz/typhoid-response.
Bowel Screening – subscribe for more info at
Updates on the progress of the National Bowel Screening Programme are being provided via an email newsletter. The next edition will be sent out in May. To subscribe please email .
Information on the Screening Programme is also available on the Ministry of Health website: www.health.govt.nz
If you have any queries about anything in this update, please email .