Immunisation at the crossroads: 9th National Immunisation/1st Asia–Pacific Vaccine Preventable Diseases Conference

McIntyre, Peter B; Kelly, Heath A; Mulholland, E Kim

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2005.tb06547.x

Topics

A stocktake of vaccination strategies and challenges

The 9th National Immunisation Conference of the Public Health Association of Australia was held in August 2004 in Cairns, Queensland, in conjunction with the 1st Asia–Pacific Vaccine Preventable Diseases Conference. The conference was attended by more than 400 delegates, predominantly from the Asia–Pacific region. A theme of the conference was the potential of vaccines to achieve greater equity in health outcomes. A session on the Australian recommended immunisation schedule generated vigorous discussion, highlighting the difficulty of dealing with a schedule that includes vaccines not funded for universal use.

1 National Centre for Immunisation Research, Sydney, NSW.
2 Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Melbourne, VIC.
3 Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, VIC.

Correspondence:

1. McIntyre P, Gidding H, Gilmour R, et al. Vaccine preventable diseases and vaccination coverage in Australia, 1999 to 2000. Canberra: Australian Government, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2002.
2. Lester R, Pitcher H, Pellisier S, Robinson P. Vaccination against serogroup C meningococcal disease. Vic Infect Dis Bull 2002; 5: 26-28.
3. Trotter CL, Andrews NJ, Kaczmarski EB, et al . Effectiveness of meningococcal serogroup C conjugate vaccine 4 years after introduction. Lancet 2004; 364: 365-367.
4. Madhi SA, Klugman KP; The Vaccine Trialist Group. A role for Streptococcus pneumoniae in virus-associated pneumonia. Nat Med 2004; 10: 811-813.
5. Andrews R, Counihan M, Hogg G, McIntyre P. Effectiveness of a publicly funded pneumococcal vaccination program against invasive pneumococcal disease among the elderly in Victoria, Australia. Vaccine 2004; 23: 132-138.
6. Flannery B, Schrag S, Bennett NM, et al. Impact of childhood vaccination on racial disparities in invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae infections. JAMA 2004; 291: 2197-2203.
7. Mulholland K, Hilton S, Adegbola R, et al. Randomised trial of Haemophilus influenzae type b-tetanus protein conjugate vaccine for prevention of pneumonia and meningitis in Gambian infants. Lancet 1997; 349: 1191-1197.
8. Ramsay ME, McVernon J, Andrews NJ, et al. Estimating Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine effectiveness in England and Wales by use of the screening method. J Infect Dis 2003; 188: 481-485.

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.