Eastern Bay Primary Health Alliance 2022 Childhood Immunisation newsletter
Kia ora koutou Trust you all had a great Xmas and New Year! For those who managed to have a break I hope you found rest and enjoyed your time off. I acknowledge those who worked through – thank you – may you have a well-deserved holiday soon This is the first email “Newsletter” for 2022 and I have a few points I would like to share with you. Please forward this email onto all vaccinators or other staff you feel would benefit in your clinic. 1. For those who have not met me yet – I am Kerri Lawrence the Western BOP Childhood Immunisation Coordinator. I will be covering all Suzanne Thompson’s clinics until we recruit and train a new Childhood Immunisation Coordinator. If you have any childhood vaccine questions or cold chain issues etc please contact me as I am here to help you all ☺ 2. Covid vaccines for 5-11yrs will commence next Monday 17th January. IMAC have sent out communications regarding the online training for this – please press here for the latest info sent 10/1/22. Scroll to the bottom of their page and subscribe to IMAC if you have not already done this so you will receive their emails and can stay up to date. 3. Covid has dominated much of our practice in 2021 – just a gentle reminder Childhood National Scheduled vaccines are super important to maintain as the last thing our Tamariki needs is a whooping cough, measles or other vaccine preventable disease outbreak. The BOP rates of children fully Immunised at 8 months, 2 years and 5 years old has been steadily dropping (seen also at National and Global rates), while it may seem this is out of our control there are a few tips that may help slow or prevent more decline. ➢ Try to keep protected time regularly to precall/recall children due for vaccines. Let me know if you are struggling to find time to recall. I will talk more on the recall guidelines next month but if you do not have the BOP childhood vaccines precall/recall guidelines please let me know and I will send it to you. ➢ Keep using ImmsNet – this monthly list will alert you to the children who are getting very late for vaccines, and prompt you to recall or refer to OIS if they meet criteria. Please contact me if you are unable to access ImmsNet. ➢ If your clinic is administering Covid vaccines to 5-11year olds, please check that they are up to date with the Childhood National Schedule. Catch up vaccines can be given with the covid vaccine at the same visit. Also check their siblings are up to date too, this may be a great way to help maintain vaccination rates. I have attached the “early administration of vaccines” from IMAC to aid you with the timings of vaccines.