Northland Immunisation Rate Poor

Media Release

Embargoed until 15 July, 2016

Northland Immunisation Rate Poor

Deciding not to immunise your baby is a choice that affects not only your child, but also their grandparents, their future children and the whole community.

Northland DHB Medical Officer of Health Dr. Juliet Rumball-Smith and Auckland researcher Dr. Tim Kenealy have authored a study published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal that reviews the data for babies born in Northland 2009 – 2013.

Titled ‘Childhood immunisations in Northland, New Zealand: declining care and the journey through the immunisation pathway’, the study explores the region’s low immunisation rates, and particularly those children who are refused vaccination as young babies.

“We have a high proportion of parents and caregivers who actively refuse immunisation for their babies – the rate of immunisation ‘decline’ in Northland is more than twice the national average,” notes Dr Rumball-Smith.

“We followed this group of children and found that this decision is long-lasting, as more than 95 percent of these children go on to be declined subsequent immunisations as well. This has important implications for the health of these children, but also for the wellbeing and resilience of a community to vaccine-preventable disease (such as measles).

“Studies show that children whose parents have refused their vaccination are 35 times more likely to get measles, and six times more likely to get whooping cough.”

As a practice nurse at a medical centre in the Whangarei area, Annie Mullenger works to protect young children through immunisation.

However, when she was raising her own family, she previously held a different view – until experience changed her mind.

Annie has six children and in the 1980s, the family were living in an isolated location near the Taipa/Mangonui area of the Far North. At the time, there was not strong support for immunisation in the community, and the experience of taking one of her younger children to be immunised confirmed her views.

“I remember two of my older children were at primary school without having been immunised,” she recalls. “Then I took my son for his six-week vaccinations and it didn’t go well. I thought: ‘this is horrible, I don’t want my baby to be this upset – I’m not going to do that again’.”

However, later that year, four of her children contracted measles. Annie’s youngest son, who was then nine months old, as well as her eight-year-old daughter, were severely affected by repercussions from contracting the disease. Annie’s baby son was admitted to Kaeo Hospital with pneumonia.

“It was really naivety on my part, because I didn’t realise how dangerous measles is. I thought that the kids would be fine because we enjoyed a healthy lifestyle. I didn’t realise the extent of what some of these diseases can be like.”

The family later spent time living overseas. During three years in the Philippines, Annie witnessed first-hand the suffering caused by tetanus, assisting the mother of a young boy whose symptoms included convulsions.

“It reinforced to me how a very simple vaccination could have prevented all that distress.

“Now that I’m involved in immunising children, I try to make the experience as uneventful as possible, by keeping the child in close contact with the mother and also giving out lollipops and stickers where appropriate.

“It’s important that they’re happy to come back and see us in future.”

-ENDS-

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