EmailHospital Circular 03/2009
Date Issued: 17 February 2009
Distribution: All Hospitals
Subject: Immunisation for health care workers
Purpose: To remind you of the DHS guidelines
As you maybe aware, over the past few weeks there have been a number of cases of measles in Victoria. Many of these cases have spent time in hospital emergency departments, and some have required admission. This has highlighted the importance of attaining high levels of immunisation coverage amongst health care workers.
In addition, numbers of cases of pertussis, especially in infants under 12 months of age, have increased over the past few months.
The measles contact tracing activities have highlighted the fact that many health care workers do not have documented immunisation records. This has resulted in a large amount of work attempting to track down records, and in organising serological testing, which could have been avoided had documentation, as is recommended in the guidelines, been available.
Health care workers may be exposed to, and transmit, vaccine-preventable diseases such as influenza, measles, rubella and pertussis. Maintaining immunity in the health care worker population helps prevent transmission of vaccine-preventable diseases to and from health care workers and patients. Hospitals are encouraged to formulate a comprehensive immunisation policy for all health care workers. Each worker should be individually assessed for specific vaccines, taking possible contraindications into account.
All staff born during or since 1966 should have two documented doses of a measles-containing vaccine. A single booster dose of pertussis vaccine (given as dTpa vaccine) is recommended for staff working in maternity and neonatal settings. Remember that it is almost time to commence influenza vaccination – all direct care staff should receive the annual seasonal influenza vaccine.
For further information on the DHS guidelines for immunisation for health care workers, view the Immunisation website.
DR JOHN CARNIE
Chief Health Officer
