Modelling vaccination plans; development of preterm babies; bronchiolitis in infants; Q&A
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How can Australia model COVID‑19 vaccination targets with limited supply?
This is an ABC podcast.
Hello and welcome to this week's Health Report Podcast with me, Norman Swann.
And me, Tegan Taylor.
Today, the critical importance of having covert vaccination targets to achieve pandemic prevention and control in Australia, and what should those targets be right now, particularly with the limited supply?
And there are about 5,000 preterm births prior to 32 weeks gestation in Australia each year. And the developmental outcomes of these kids is becoming clear and the long-standing concerns of parents are being borne out. So we're going to hear from a parent and a researcher who has followed over 4,000 of these kids to age five.
Speaking of kids, a respiratory condition of babies, which is a common reason for them, in fact, the commonest reason for having to be admitted to hospital, how best to treat it, because we don't do that well at the moment. And how do we exit from this pandemic? It's a question asked since the beginning, and the promise has always been that vaccines are the way out. If Australia had met its original COVID vaccine targets, around six million Australians would have had their first dose by now, according to the ABC's. Data journalists, the number is less than half of that, and the federal government is resisting setting new targets for mass vaccination given the limited supply. But we've been told that the motivation to be immunized is to protect ourselves, our families, and the community and allow Australia to open up again.
A prospect that, according to the Federal Treasurer, is a year away. The Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales has modeled how we could best deploy our limited supply of vaccines for maximal effect. Professor Rhina McIntyre led the research, which has just been published in a major international journal. Ryana heads the biosecurity program at the Kirby. Welcome back to the Health Report, Rhina.
Good evening, Norman.
Can you set out the parameters of the modelling? What you're looking for in terms of targets, for what benefit did you build into your model?
So we looked at New South Wales as an example with a hypothetical epidemic that starts with a hundred cases a day, which is sort of You know, for example in Victoria last year there were seven hundred plus cases a day at the peak of that epidemic. So it's a you know, substantial epidemic. And then we looked at what if you've only got a million doses of vaccine for seven and a half million people versus what if you had a full supply and could vaccinate everyone? So, um, in the limited supply we looked at the usual ways of targeting which is giving it to particular age groups and we compared younger people versus older people. Um, we take it as a ki took it as a given that you have to vaccinate health workers and other first responders.
And really none of those targeted strategies will control the epidemic.
None.
Yeah.
So what do you get for your money in in those strategies?
We don't yet know whether the covet vaccines work as post exposure prophylaxis, which is where You do your con what you have an outbreak, you trace the contacts and you you vaccinate people who are contacts and therefore exposed potentially to the virus.
So this is called ring vaccination. It's what they did to control the smallpox pandemic and epidemic in the in the end.
That's right. Yeah. In the end they they just couldn't achieve mass vaccination in some countries, notably India. Um, and so they switched to this ring vaccination strategy, which is which is essentially tr contact tracing and vaccination of the contacts. And in that case the smallpox vaccine efficacy dropped from, you know, about ninety five percent to about fifty percent. So it the efficacy was halved, but it was still enough. to actually eradicate smallpox. We can't eradicate SARS CoV two for various reasons, but Um, the vaccine may well have some effectiveness in that way. And if there is an outbreak, then that is a good way to use a limited supply until we know. You know, Australia's in a good position to actually study this and
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How can Australia model COVID‑19 vaccination targets with limited supply?
0:02–4:56
2
What do long‑term studies reveal about development in pre‑term babies?
4:56–9:43
3
Why is bronchiolitis the leading cause of infant hospital admissions and how should it be treated?
9:43–14:05
4
What did the bronchiolitis trial find about reducing low‑value care in hospitals?
14:05–19:54
5
Should people take aspirin after an AstraZeneca COVID‑19 vaccine?
19:54–26:23
6
Is silica in cosmetics a health risk and should it be avoided?
26:23–32:45
7
Do orthodontic braces really protect teeth long‑term for teenagers?
32:45–36:54
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