Authorised nurse immunisers can now administer Japanese encephalitis vaccines.
The Authority for Nurse/Midwife Immunisers has recently been amended to include the following additional vaccines:
- Japanese encephalitis vaccines – mandatory training required
- typhoid vaccines
- herpes zoster – Shingrix only. Does not include Zostavax
The Authority is available to download from the NSW Health website.
In order to administer the Japanese encephalitis vaccines, Authorised Nurse/Midwife Immunisers must have completed Japanese encephalitis: A resource for registered nurses and midwives.
NSW Health is advising that Japanese encephalitis vaccine is now recommended for a broader group of people including:
- people aged 2 months or older who live or routinely work in any of these local government areas (see Table 1) AND:
- spend significant time outdoors (four hours per day), particularly at dawn or dusk, near large water bodies or rivers, OR
- due to flooding, are living/sleeping in conditions that place them at increased risk of exposure to mosquitoes OR
- are engaged in the prolonged recovery efforts of stagnant waters following floods.
NSW Health also continues to recommend and offer free vaccination for people who live in any part of NSW and:
- work, live, or are visiting a:
- piggery, including farm workers and their families (including children aged 2 months and older) living at the piggery, animal transport workers, veterinarians (including veterinary students and nurses) and others involved in the care of pigs;
- pork abattoir or pork rendering plant
- work directly with mosquitoes through their surveillance (field or laboratory-based) or control and management, and indirectly through management of vertebrate mosquito-borne disease surveillance systems (e.g. sentinel animals) such as:
- environmental health officers and workers (urban and remote)
- entomologists
- all diagnostic and research laboratory workers who may be exposed to the virus, such as people working with JEV cultures or mosquitoes with the potential to transmit JEV; as per the Australian Immunisation Handbook.
Mid and North Coast Localised Pathways
manc.communityhealthpathways.org
Username: manchealth
Password: conn3ct3d