Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Minister, my constituents tell me that there is a 700-patient waitlist for the shingles vaccine at just one GP clinic on the Mayo south coast. It's reported that that clinic is limited to receiving just 15 vaccines at a time. As minister, what urgent steps are you taking to ensure that older and vulnerable Australians who need this vaccine are able to gain access in a timely manner?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mayo for her question and her interest in health care, drawing the House's attention again to the very significant investment that we've made in listing the Shingrix vaccine very quickly after the first recommendation was made by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee late last year. This is really a life-changing vaccine, particularly for older Australians. It's not often well understood just how debilitating a case of shingles can be, particularly for older Australians but also for younger Australians who may be immunocompromised.

The supply arrangements that we came to with the company for the new Shingrix vaccine late last year were modelled on the usual basis that we model these things, with ABS data and an analysis of likely uptake. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head for the member for Mayo, but we ordered literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of doses, recognising that there would be a very significant interest among older Australians to access this vaccine.

I have been engaging very closely not just with my department but also with state and territory authorities—state governments—who have responsibility for distributing vaccines under the National Immunisation Program to access points, which are essentially general practices and pharmacies. We've been working very closely with them, including in South Australia, where there's probably been more public attention around this question than in other jurisdictions. I haven't had advice for a few weeks, but the latest advice I got was that supply issues were being resolved in all jurisdictions. We've got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of additional doses that are coming into Australia over the course of the first half of this year. Many of them landed in February. I haven't had an update for some weeks to suggest that there are additional supply issues. I'm concerned that the member for Mayo has raised that. I'd be very interested in having a discussion with her offline, because I am absolutely determined to make sure that as many Australians as possible get access to this life-changing vaccine.