The Australian Immunisation Handbook 9th Edition 2008

Welcome to the Australian Immunisation Handbook 9th Edition website.

The purpose of The Australian Immunisation Handbook is to provide clinical guidelines for health professionals on the safest and most effective use of vaccines in their practice. These recommendations are developed by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) and endorsed by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The Handbook provides clinical recommendations based on the best scientific evidence available at the time of publication from published and unpublished literature. Further details regarding the Handbook revision procedures are described in Appendix 2. Where specific empiric evidence was unavailable, recommendations were formulated using the best available expert opinion relevant to Australia. The electronic version of the Handbook has additional information regarding recommendations in the new vaccine chapters, including systematic reviews of the literature. In some instances, the NHMRC recommendations differ from vaccine product information sheets (PI); these differences are detailed in the relevant vaccine chapters under the heading ‘Variations from product information’. Where a variation exists, the NHMRC recommendation should be considered best practice.

The Handbook is divided into Three parts:

• Part 1 Vaccination Procedures;
• Part 2 Vaccination for Special Risk Groups; and
• Part 3 Vaccines Listed By Disease.

The Quick Guides contain information that is likely to be required for easy reference, such as anaphylaxis signs and treatment, and a Parent Advice Sheet. You can access the different parts of the Handbook and Quick Guides using the navigation on the left hand side of the page.Printable version of the complete Handbook (PDF 2368 KB)

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• Immunise Australia website