Measles vaccination information
10 March 2021
Dear [name and contact details withheld]
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
Thank you for your request dated 26 January 2021 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to measles vaccination data and the measles outbreak in 2019. Your request was partially transferred by the Ministry of Health to PHARMAC on 15 February 2021. You requested:
The number of vaccines acquired to deal with the measles outbreak in 2019 (And, how does that compare with what is normally acquired?).
- How many of these vaccines were then administered?
- How many of these vaccines expired before they were administered?
- How many were acquired in 2020? Have any expired?
Please refer to the tables below for the number of vaccines delivered to New Zealand and administered in each calendar year from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2020.
The total MMR vaccine doses delivered to New Zealand in 2019 and 2020 includes supply for normal use and outbreak management.
- Of the MMR vaccine doses delivered in 2019, none expired prior to being administered.
- Of the MMR vaccine doses delivered in 2020, none expired prior to being administered.
Please note, PHARMAC is closely monitoring the distribution of the MMR vaccine and is working with the supplier to ensure that suitable volumes of MMR vaccine are delivered to the National Vaccine Store with an appropriate safety buffer to accommodate any outbreaks.
MMR vaccines doses delivered to New Zealand
Year |
Doses delivered |
---|---|
2017 |
155,500 |
2018 |
156,000 |
2019 |
449,327 |
2020 |
569,520 |
MMR vaccine doses administered in New Zealand*
Month |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
---|---|---|---|---|
January |
9,998 |
10,988 |
11,759 |
12,249 |
February |
10,248 |
10,667 |
11,647 |
10,866 |
March |
11,201 |
11,914 |
40,942 |
9,973 |
April |
8,086 |
9,728 |
17,932 |
5,944 |
May |
11,621 |
11,535 |
16,991 |
10,444 |
June |
9,690 |
11,257 |
13,785 |
10,002 |
July |
10,089 |
11,021 |
13,953 |
10,779 |
August |
10,937 |
11,521 |
18,119 |
8,418 |
September |
10,442 |
10,226 |
50,217 |
10,140 |
October |
10,713 |
11,106 |
15,281 |
12,944 |
November |
12,350 |
11,368 |
15,592 |
12,225 |
December |
9,108 |
8,651 |
14,431 |
13,525 |
Total |
124,483 |
129,982 |
241,649 |
127,509 |
* This data was extracted 18 February 2021 from the National Immunisation Register, Ministry of Health. Counts are of vaccination events. Duplicates have been removed (when there are multiple events per person per day, only one event is counted). The National Immunisation Register may under report the actual number of vaccinations administered.
The number of MMR vaccine doses held in the National Vaccine Store as of 31 January 2021 was 524,285 doses. We do not hold data on the number of doses on hand with individual vaccinators (eg stock held by general practitioners).
For additional information that may be of interest to you for your request, please refer to our OIA response provided 12 November 2019 regarding the MMR vaccine.
We trust that this information answers your queries. We are making our information more freely available, so we will now publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.
Yours sincerely
Rachel Read
Manager, Policy and Government Services