(Transcript from World News Radio)
Gaps in government funding are creating pockets of under-immunisation in refugee and migrant communities around Australia.
Many refugees arrive in Australia after cut off dates for federally-funded immunisations and most aren't able to pay for expensive vacines.
Health experts warn it could create epidemics of diseases thought to be eradicated in Australia.
Abby Dinham reports.
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University of New South Wales Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Raina MacIntyre says under-immunisation in refugee and migrant communities is risking outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease across Australia.
"We've seen large outbreaks of measles the largest since 1998 in the last couple of years in Sydney and western Sydney and these have been definitely linked to under-immunised migrant populations."
Eastern Access Community Health runs clinics and refugee health programs on the east coast of Australia.
It reports that up to 70 percent of its clients are not fully immunised.
Professor MacIntyre blames gaps in government funding.
"There is no universal, national initiative to catch up under-immunised migrants and refugees. Say a child comes to Australia as a refugee or migrant at the age of 12 and so they've missed out on scheduled immunisation points on our national immunisation schedule. There's no national mechanism to ensure they get catch-up vaccinations that is funded."
Most states don't fund catch-up immunisations for Hepatitis B, Human Papilloma Virus or certain strands of meningococcal disease.
And to reach suggested national standards of immunisation, a person with no immunisation history can pay up to $730.
Refugee community nurse in Melbourne's east Merilyn Spratling says her clients are keen to be vaccinated, but that's too high a cost for some.
"Everybody wants to be vaccinated. There isn't anybody that says no I can't. The only problem would be if they're moving away but then we liaise with the clinic they're going to so they don't fall through the gap. The refugees and asylum seekers want to be vaccinated."
The shortfalls in the delivery of immunisations particularly effects those who arrive after childhood.
Tincan Khheing has two daughters.
But only one is eligible to get the HPV vaccine for free.
She can't afford to pay for the other.
"Eldest one is 19 years old. She's too old to get it from the government. The youngest one is 13 years old and she can get from the government but the 19 year old can't because she's too old. I love my children and I don't want them to get the disease for cervical cancer. I want to protect them from sickness."
Immunisations are funded nationally, but administered according to state criteria.
It's a complex arrangement for both patients and doctors.
The federal Department of Health and the Immigration Minister's office each referred SBS to the other, when asked to clarify funding arrangements for catch-up vaccines for refugees and migrants.
CEO of Eastern Access Community Health Peter Ruzyla describes the funding arrangements as brutal.
"I call it the immunisations lottery. Which of my children in my family and there's families with 7 or 8 children, which of those are in the immunisation age-range, the free immunisation age-range and which ones happen to fall outside of it?"
Diseases such as measles are largely eradicated in Australia
But Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Raina MacIntyre says it's still being imported from overseas.
"People of a migrant or refugee background who are going to their country of origin to visit their friends or relatives are more at risk because they are less likely to seek travel advice and more likely to be under immunised."
Professor MacIntyre says that unless a person is under the age of seven, there is no national register of general immunisations.
She says this means that as people change locations and doctors their vaccination records are often lost, and the process of catching up on immunisations for those who want them, must begin again.
