Australia actively monitors less than 4% of vaccinations for side effects.
Safety monitoring over the years
In 2018, there were just 80,000 vaccinations actively monitored. This is less than 1% of National Immunisation Program (NIP) vaccinations administered across the whole of Australia.
The AusVaxSafety annual report of 2019 shows an increase in Active Surveillance by 488%. This increase was supported by the introduction of tools such as SmartVax and Vaxtracker.
By 2019, there were 470,000 vaccinations actively monitored. Less than 4% of National Immunisation Program vaccinations administered in Australia.
While there has been an increase in the volume of active surveillance, it is still a small sample of the 11.9 million NIP Vaccinations administered per year. If you add to that the 8 million+ paid vaccinations (flu, travel, etc) per year, that sample size is even smaller.
See Part 1 The Australian Immunisation Challenge – Provider Capacity.
A few points to consider when actively monitoring vaccine safety:
What data is collected via active surveillance?
SmartVax or VaxTracker are the tools currently used by AusVaxSafety.
The challenge is that they are external add ons to existing administration software (e.g. practice management tools). This leads to limited data, from the administration software, being passed to the vaccine safety tools.
Another challenge is that consent to share data is not captured within practice management software. This is also not legislated like the Australian Immunisation Register Act, so all data passed is de-identified.
As a result, minimal data points can be used by Australia’s world-leading safety experts to identify trends and patterns.
When an adverse event is identified via existing active surveillance tools, the responsibility for follow up falls on the Immunisation Provider. Each provider completes a report for their State Health Department and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) which requires excessive administration. This can cause delays in reporting of Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) which is the subject of my next post which you can find here.
Here’s a thought….
At a time when Australia has 20.67% of the immunisation provider capacity required to deliver routine vaccinations alongside a COVID-19 vaccine, should healthcare providers time be consumed with manual administration reporting?
It currently takes a minimum of 69 data fields to complete an adverse event report. The latest technology can automate the collation of the majority of that report and rapidly send to governing bodies if reporting systems are upgraded. I digress – back to the active surveillance…
Health Care locations using surveillance tools
There are currently 375 immunisation provider sites across Australia using AusVaxSafety’s surveillance tools.
And while Victoria has 26% of the population only 11% of these sites are Victorian immunisation providers.
The role of active surveillance
Active Surveillance is about more than just vaccine safety, it contributes to community confidence.
COVID-19 has shifted mass media attention to immunisations. From vaccine development to distribution, and cold chain management to vaccine safety. Combine this with the rise of vaccination misinformation and there has never been a more important time to monitor every vaccination.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of all, is that technology has developed to assess large volumes of data to identify trends, patterns and predictive analysis.
It’s time to take advantage of this technology for immunisation healthcare, to support our medical experts who assess the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and ongoing routine vaccinations.
The risk of mismanaging adverse events
One mismanaged adverse event from a COVID-19 Vaccine can undo decades of hard work by immunisation providers and health departments.
Australia recently achieved our aspirational herd immunity goal of 95% so it is imperative that the vaccine safety system is improved to maintain community confidence in Immunisation.
Monitoring every vaccination gives the ability for research and education groups such as NCIRS or MVEC to provide safety transparency. It also allows them to have complete data for statistical analysis to support informed educational campaigns.
Active surveillance touchpoints via SMS and email with vaccine recipients can provide a powerful opportunity to instil vaccine safety confidence in the public.
With rapid uptake of a COVID-19 vaccine essential to ending the pandemic, economic recovery, and taking that holiday you have been craving throughout 2020 – why wouldn’t you want to actively monitor every Australian Vaccination?
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