November 08, 2022
Childhood vaccine system collapsed
Child health experts are calling for urgent action to address Aotearoa’s low rates of immunisations for preventable and life-threatening childhood diseases like measles and whooping cough.
Paediatric Society spokesperson Dr Owen Sinclair from Te Rarawa says Māori and Pasifika immunisation rates are as low as they have ever been and nowhere near the levels needed to protect tamariki.
He says COVID resulted in the collapse of the childhood vaccine system.
In South Auckland, only one in three Māori pēpi are up-to-date with their immunisations at six months of age.
That’s similar to the rate in Samoa in 2019, when there was a fatal measles epidemic.
Dr Sinclair says such low rates of immunisation in Māori populations represent a preventable ethnic inequality that is a breach of Te Tiriti.
The Paediatrics Society wants to see the vaccination system reconfigured so it is easy for whānau to get their tamariki immunised for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), and whooping cough.