Pharmacies nationwide funded for free pertussis vaccinations

Pharmacists are welcoming news that they will be funded to offer free pertussis vaccines to pregnant women from September.

The vaccine was reclassified so pharmacists could offer it to patients aged 18 and over in 2014. It was reclassified again in 2017 to allows pharmacists to offer it to pregnant women aged 13 and over.

But in all areas except the Waikato where pharmacies offering funded pertussis vaccines has been piloted since 2016, patients have had to pay for it.

But last week, TAS notified all pharmacies that the vaccine will be funded in pharmacy from 1 September. Pharmacies who accept the variation to the Integrated Community Pharmacy Services Agreement now out for consideration, will be paid an immunisation administration fee of $27.84 (excluding GST) per dose.

University of Auckland researcher Natalie Gauld is among those who pushed for the funding and says the decision is “fantastic” for patients and pharmacists.

“At a time when hospitals are so under pressure, we think that if pharmacists can help keep babies out of hospital then that’s fantastic,” Dr Gauld says.

“It’s a really smart move to increase uptake and I’m sure pharmacists will do a really good job.”

“At a time when hospitals are so under pressure, we think that if pharmacists can help keep babies out of hospital then that’s fantastic"

Another advocate for the change was Hamilton pharmacy owner and former PSNZ president Ian McMichael, who says the announcement is “an absolutely fantastic outcome”.

Mr McMichael says this week’s change would not have happened without all those who piloted pertussis vaccinations in pharmacy in the Waikato. At the forefront, this includes Midland Community Pharmacy Group chief executive Cath Knapton and her team for designing the service, Waikato DHB chief medical officer Felicity Dumble and the Waikato DHB for having the courage to approve and fund it, and Natalie Gauld and her research team.

Mr McMichael says the Pharmaceutical Society and the relationships it has built with government decision makers also helped “create the environment” where this decision was reached.

“When I was PSNZ president we set the goal of pharmacists doing all funded vaccines by 2025 and I think we are well on track for that.”

Also known as whooping cough, pertussis is easily spread and many adults who catch it will either be asymptomatic or present as having a mild cold, Dr Gauld says.

It can have severe outcomes of hospitalisation, permanent damage or even death for newborn babies who have no protection against the disease unless their mother was vaccinated while pregnant, she says. Nationally, immunisation rates are low with only 43.6 per cent of women who gave birth in 2018 being vaccinated for pertussis.

Dr Gauld was involved in research into the effectiveness of pharmacists offering pertussis vaccines in the Waikato. The results show that before Waikato pharmacies started giving funded pertussis vaccines in 2016, 21 per cent of pregnant women received a maternal pertussis vaccine. This rose to 35 per cent after the programme was introduced.

The study also found vaccination coverage was lower for Māori women versus non-Māori, but in Waikato, after funding for pharmacy was introduced, Māori vaccination rates jumped from 9.4 per cent to 20.4 per cent by 2019.

Dr Gauld advises pharmacists to contact their local midwives and tell them that from 1 September they can offer the vaccines free and without an appointment.

She also says pharmacists can look out for scripts from midwives and, if the patient is over 16 weeks pregnant, use that as an opportunity to offer them a pertussis vaccine while they wait for their medicine to be dispensed.

- Pharmacy Today