NIP Update: Clarifying gap between doses | Evaluation of Māori influenza and measles vaccination programme | MMR resources

Tēnā koutou health sector friends, advocates and colleagues,

Happy Friday!

COVID-19

Clarifying the gap between boosters

We’ve had requests for clarification around the gap between first and second boosters. Please share the following advice with your vaccinators:

To ensure the correct gap between first and second boosters, in line with the Director General’s Epidemic Notice, we have set the Book My Vaccine gap at 185 days. This allows for differences in the number of days in a month and for a day zero. The detecting failsafe is set at <180 days. If someone presents for their second booster at 179 days or earlier please talk to them about why they are presenting early. If there are accessibility, equity or clinical reasons, it may be appropriate to vaccinate them early and we do want to facilitate this when it is needed.  

Ideally, in these situations you will first obtain a prescription, and many vaccinators have access to a prescriber (ask your provider if you are unsure). If this isn’t easily obtained, you can seek clinical advice from IMAC to help your decision making. Any early vaccination needs to have the risks clearly explained to the consumer and noted in the CIR. A failsafe warning is triggered whenever a person receives their second booster 179 days or earlier. Your notes help your District’s Quality Team assess the failsafe information and decide whether an incident has occurred or not. 

Gap between Pfizer boosters

To help those at the frontline explain the gap between Pfizer doses, we’ve created a downloadable A3 poster that can be used in primary care settings. You can access the ‘Pfizer vaccination flowchart’ poster here.

COVID-19 second booster direct communications work

Following previous success with our personalised direct communications to eligible people encouraging them to get vaccinated, we are continuing with our second booster campaign. Yesterday (Thursday 28 July) we sent email and text messages to ~10-20k newly eligible people encouraging them to visit BookMyVaccine to find a walk-in vaccination site or to book an appointment. 

FLU

Evaluation of the Māori Influenza and Measles Vaccination Programme: In Pursuit of Māori Health Equity

On Wednesday 27 July, the evaluation report of the 2021 Māori Influenza and Measles Vaccination Programme (MIMVP) was published. MIMVP provides funding to providers around the country for initiatives designed to boost Māori influenza and measles vaccination rates. The evaluation assessed the contribution of MIMVP to increasing Māori flu vaccination and equity rates in 2021, identifying which initiatives worked and what could be improved in future. Read the report’s findings:

Evaluation of the Māori Influenza and Measles Vaccination Programme: In Pursuit of Māori Health Equity | Ministry of Health NZ

Flu resources

Just another reminder that we have some amended flu posters and digital assets which are now more suited for display within primary care settings. You can find these in the ‘Talk to us’ folder in our Dropbox - Influenza - Simplify your life.

Your feedback requested

If there are any other types of collateral that would help you promote vaccinations, please let us know. We’re keen to get your feedback.

MMR

New resources

The new measles flyer and poster mentioned last week have now been loaded to our Dropbox. You can find them here. Please feel free to use and share with your networks.

GENERAL UPDATES

Weekly vaccination data

Our latest Māori and Pacific COVID-19 vaccination data is now available here.

This week’s flu vaccination data is available here.

Collateral on Dropbox

We have a range of collateral you and your providers can use to promote vaccinations. Feel free to share this link and the collateral widely: Dropbox - NIP – Vaccine resources for health professionals - Simplify your life. Please note we have recently added te reo Maori translations for Flu, Covid-19 and MMR consent forms.

Vaccination booths

From Friday 5 August the cost of vaccination booths ordered via Bluestar will no longer be covered by the National Immunisation Programme. The booths will still be available in a ‘user pays’ format and we will advise you in our next update on how you can do this. Please pass this message on to your networks.

Kia pai to mutunga wiki!