Influenza vaccine access for Māori and Pacific Peoples

OIA response

Thank you again for your request dated 29 May 2023 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to the proposal to influenza vaccine. You wrote:

I am wishing to file an Official Information Act request regarding the proposal to make the flu vaccination available to Maori and Pacific people from 50 to 64 years of age. Specifically, I am requesting: 

All research and economic analysis that Pharmac has undertaken 

All information presented when the proposal was examined in Pharmac's prioritisation process of December 2022

The minutes, if any exist, from the prioritisation decision of December 2022. 

In our response to you of 21 June 2023, we extended the due date for making a decision on your request to 14 July 2023. We also provided you with references to information about the decision to widen access to influenza vaccine in 2022.

Additional documents released in response to your request

Please see the attached documents for information related to your request. The documents provided relate to the:

We have redacted information not related to your request (i.e. ‘out of scope’) or where we consider this is necessary to:

  • protect information where the making available of the information would be likely to unreasonably prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information (section 9(2)(b)(ii)); and/or
  • enable Pharmac to carry on, without prejudice or disadvantage, negotiations, including commercial negotiations (section 9(2)(j)).

Please note that we approach our assessment of requests for information under the OIA on the basis that once we release the information to you it becomes available to any other party in that exact form (whether by you distributing it to others or by virtue of us receiving the same request from a different third party).

Closing

We trust this information answers your query. Please note, you have the right to make a complaint to the Ombudsman about our response to your OIA, under section 28(3) of the OIA. Details of how to make a complaint(external link) are on the Ombudsman’s website.

To make information more freely available, we publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.