To any new grandparent hoping to visit a new born in Australia ,you are required to have the whooping cough vaccine prior to your visit, that is the easy bit, the difficult bit is getting the vaccine. The NHS hold all the stocks for whooping cough and flatly refuse to allow any of THEIR stock to be used on adults for the visit down under. A few , and I mean a few private clinics can get the surplus stocks from the suppliers for around £100 per person. As soon as you can organise your jab so as not to put yur family at risk
Totally don't understand - if you have had pertussis vaccine as a child (which has been part of the immunisation schedule since 1960's) do you have to have a booster?
Is it a requirement for visiting Australia, or just to visit a newborn?
whooping cough as not disappeared in Au, the child gets its last jab at 4 months and until then regular close contacts require to be vaccinated , the uk records are not 100% accurate if administered and a booster is recommended
so does this mean that you cannot enter AU without a recent certificate of vaccination? What's the legal position?
Yes you can enter Au, you will need a visa etc, the vaccination is to protect the newborn from infection from visitors with regular contact, my son and partner had theirs via the doctor when she became pregnant, 'cos the whooping cough is not prevalent in the uk the nhs does not have a system to vacinate a vistor going to the Au ,thats the point of the message, the vaccination takes 2 weeks to become effective so its not practical to have it there and not be safe making contact with the child
Ah, I see you are worried. We don't have an outbreak of pertussis here. have you spoken to your Dr?