A SCATHING review of this season’s child flu vaccine fiasco has highlighted the need for an urgent overhaul of Australia’s fragmented vaccine surveillance systems and closer co-operation between the states and the Commonwealth.Authorities were too slow to respond to a wave of vaccine-related fevers and convulsions among children who received the seasonal flu vaccine, according to an independent review tabled in WA Parliament last week.The review has led to calls to overhaul the current system and introduce real-time, online vaccine surveillance.Although the trend in reactions was apparent from early April, GPs and emergency departments were kept in the dark while the matter was being investigated, the review found, with the WA childhood vaccination program not suspended until 22 April.Professor Bryant...
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