A national immunisation expert says Aboriginal babies are not being
immunised early enough.
University of Sydney researcher Robert Menzies says compared to
non-Indigenous people, fewer Aboriginal children are vaccinated by the
age of 12 months.
Mr Menzies says if children are not vaccinated in the early months of
their lives, it is impossible to prevent them from catching diseases
such as whooping cough.
"That's a serious problem for some diseases such as whooping cough,
where it is really critical to get vaccinated on time because the
younger children under six months of age are the ones that suffer most
seriously from the disease," he said.
Mr Menzies says a better system needs to be developed to monitor which
Indigenous babies are in need of vaccination and to improve Aboriginal
parents' access to immunisation.
"Providing outreach services or transport for people so that they can
get to clinics and also having clinic record systems set up so that if
somebody does come to the clinic for something else and they also have
vaccinations due, that that chance is not missed," he said. |
