Vaccination headache for Northland

The timing of summer holidays is a problem for the Northland District Health Board meningococcal vaccination programme.

The campaign will begin with pre-schoolers in November before being taken into schools next May. A campaign urging school-leavers to get vaccinated is to start in February.

Northland Health Maori health general manager Kim Tito said one of the board's main concerns was that the first vaccinations were to start in November "with the imminent cessation of the final school term".

Children tended to disappear during the holidays, and the board faced the possibility of having to pick up children on holiday in Northland who had had their first or second vaccinations in Auckland but not the follow-up.