The Commonwealth Government will provide free vaccines to protect newborn babies and older people from pneumococcal disease, as well as a catch up program for toddlers.
The Government will spend $178 million on the childhood pneumococcal vaccination program to the end of 2006. The government is also committing to funding the program in future years to enable this to be part of routine vaccination arrangements for all new born babies.
Following a world-wide shortage of the childhood pneumococcal vaccine, Prevenar, the Australian Government has now secured a supply of the vaccine and will make it available free of charge for all babies born after 1st January 2005 and also for all children born since 1st January 2003.
The government’s negotiations with Wyeth Australia have resulted in a lower price of $81 a dose for newborn children at 2, 4 and 6 months of age and also a special price of $71.30 a dose for the catch-up component of the program for children up to 2 years of age. This value has been achieved by the Government paying in advance for a two-year supply of the vaccine. This special price for the vaccine is a fair deal for Australian taxpayers.
The deal struck with the supplier of Prevenar vaccine, Wyeth Australia, secures stocks of an internationally scarce product for our community. In addition, Wyeth Australia has agreed to keep a three-month supply of Prevenar vaccine here to protect Australians from any future global shortages should they occur.
In addition, from 1 January next year the Government will provide free pneumococcal vaccine to all Australians aged 65 years and older as they are also at increased risk from invasive pneumococcal disease.