About childhood immunisation coverage
Immunisation coverage is the percentage of children who have had all vaccines recommended for their age. The coverage rate for all children at five years is 93.85%.
92.82% of Australian one year olds and 91.10% of Australian two year olds are fully vaccinated.
What is childhood immunisation coverage?
Childhood immunisation coverage is the percentage of children in Australia who have had all the vaccines recommended for their age in the National Immunisation Program Schedule.
Measuring childhood immunisation coverage lets us keep track of how protected we are against vaccine-preventable diseases.
Our target
When enough people are vaccinated against a disease to prevent it from spreading, this is known as ‘herd immunity’. Herd immunity offers indirect protection to:
- unvaccinated people including children too young to be vaccinated
- people unable to be vaccinated for a range of valid medical reasons
- people for whom vaccination has not been fully effective.
To achieve herd immunity for infectious diseases, coverage needs to be high. For example, measles is highly infectious so it needs a coverage rate of about 92% to 94%.
Australia’s national aspirational coverage target is 95%. Reaching this aspirational target will give us enough herd immunity to stop the spread of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
Did you know? Australia is working with other countries to increase immunisation coverage around the world, as part of the Global Vaccine Action Plan 2011–2020.
How we have been tracking
We are close to meeting our aspirational target of 95% for all age groups, having almost achieved 95% coverage for one year olds and five year olds.
Our successes so far:
- 95.23% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander five year olds are covered.
- Coverage rates for all one year olds are at 92.82%.
- We have almost reached the aspirational 95% for all 5 year olds.
For detailed data, take a look at:
- current data tables for all children
- current data tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
- historical data tables for all children
- historical data tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
Where we get the numbers
We get our numbers from the Australian Immunisation Register. Vaccination providers including general practitioners (GPs) report to the Register when they give vaccines to their patients