Australia’s effective monitoring system shows that serious reactions are rare
Australia has achieved very high levels of vaccination coverage in the past 10 years, with 91% of children fully vaccinated at 12 months of age and 92.1% at 2 years.1 Consequently, rates of vaccine-preventable diseases are very low. As the incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases declines, the safety and side effects of vaccines gain prominence, and an increasingly important role of health care professionals is to communicate the benefits and risks of vaccination to parents.2
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- The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Westmead, NSW.
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