Immunisation Weekly Update:

Welcome to our weekly Immunisation Update! In this week’s update read about:

• Beat the summer heat – prepare for possible power disruptions
• Shingrix ® update
• AIR antenatal indicator
• Updated: Vaccination from community pharmacy
• New RSV vaccine history table

Beat the summer heat – prepare for possible power disruptions

During the warmer months power outages are more likely to occur. Ensure your practice is prepared for disruptions to power supply by:

• Review your practice/pharmacy’s vaccine management procedures and protocols with all staff members, ensuring everyone knows what to do in managing a power failure.
• Review NSW Health website for Vaccine storage and cold chain management
• Refer to the NSW Cold Chain Toolkit to ensure all vaccination storage requirements are in place should an outage occur.
• Complete NSW Health Vaccine Storage Checklist
• Reach out to CESPHN immunisation team if you need assistance in preparing or reviewing your vaccine management and storage protocols and procedures: immunisation@cesphn.com.au

Shingrix® update

On 1 November 2024, the Shingrix® Australian Product Information was updated to support the quality use and safe administration of Shingrix®. The changes include:

• The addition of a recommended needle gauge for reconstitution (21G-25G)
• Specific instruction to administer 0.5mL of the reconstituted vaccine.

AIR antenatal indicator

From 7 December 2024, there will be changes to recording immunisation encounters using the AIR.

The available options in the Vaccine Type field will change: ‘State Program’ and ‘Private’ options will be removed and ‘Other’ will be added.

A new antenatal indictor will be added to the AIR which will allow providers to report if the person is pregnant at the time of vaccine administration. A new warning message will appear when Antenatal is selected for individuals outside the approved age group or recorded gender.

Contact your software vendor to find out when the software will be updated to reflect the changes.

Updated: Vaccination from community pharmacy resource

In November 2024, the NCIRS’ popular resource Vaccination from community pharmacy was updated.

In addition to other minor updates, the factsheet now incorporates the latest information on what is permissible in relation to the administration of Abrysvo® vaccine to pregnant women, for the prevention of severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease in their unborn infants.

Vaccine history tables: RSV added

The NCIRS immunisation history tables summarise significant events in vaccination practice in Australia, particularly for vaccines used in population-based immunisation programs.

NCIRS has added RSV to its series of resources on the history of immunisation in Australia. Vaccine history tables for influenza, mpox and meningococcal were also updated last week. RSV

Education