Essential Vaccines: performance report 2022–23

This report provides an assessment of state and territory performance against the performance benchmarks outlined in the Essential Vaccines Schedule of the Federation Funding Agreement – Health (EVS), for the sixth year of the agreement, covering the assessment period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

The EVS is an agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and the states and territories, which aims to “support the cost-effective and efficient delivery of the National Immunisation Program to protect the Australian public from the spread of vaccine preventable diseases”.

The performance benchmarks assessed in this report are:

1. maintained or increased vaccination coverage rates for 60–<63-month-olds relative to the baseline;
2. maintained or increased vaccination coverage rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in at least two of the following three age cohorts: 12–<15 months;24–<27 months; and 60–<63 months, relative to the baseline;
3. an increase in the vaccination coverage rate for both adolescent boys and adolescent girls for HPV, relative to the baseline;
4. an increase in vaccination coverage rates for 60–<63-month-olds in four of the ten lowest vaccination coverage SA3 geographical areas in each jurisdiction, relative to the baseline; and
5. an annual decrease in the wastage and leakage rate for agreed vaccines, relative to the baseline.

A performance milestone of “provision of annual schools HPV immunisation data for the previous school year by 1 March each year” is also specified in the agreement. For the sixth year of the agreement, all states and territories achieved this milestone.

One jurisdiction (South Australia) met 4 of the 5 benchmarks assessed in this report. Three jurisdictions (Qld, WA and ACT) met 3 of the 5 benchmarks assessed in this report.

Note: A list of the EVS benchmarks and their detailed specifications is in Appendix A.

Results in this report should be interpreted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to disruption to health infrastructure, resourcing processes, and changes in health seeking behaviour. These factors may have led to limited immunisation service access and reduced vaccine demand through the reporting period.