There have been amendments to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) Rule as of 1 March 2024.

It will be mandatory for all vaccination providers to report the following to the AIR:

• the route of administration for Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) vaccines; and
• information about the vaccine type for all vaccines prescribed by the AIR Rule (COVID-19, Influenza, National Immunisation Program and JEV vaccines).

Reporting timely, high quality and accurate vaccination information ensures that the AIR contains a complete and reliable dataset to enable the monitoring of immunisation coverage and administration. It also ensures that:

• individuals have a complete record of their vaccinations that can be provided as
  evidence for education, employment, and/or travel purposes.
• families’ eligibility to receive family assistance payments (for example, Family Tax
  Benefit Part A and childcare subsidy) or early childhood services are not impacted.

As eligibility for these payments is linked to a child’s vaccination status, it is imperative that vaccination providers continue to report vaccination information to the AIR in a timely manner.

Next steps for vaccination providers:

• The quickest and easiest ways to report vaccination information to the AIR is through clinical software or the AIR site in HPOS. Vaccination providers should use the latest version of their clinical software (where the new fields are available to report).
• Vaccination providers can still report vaccinations to the AIR where clinical software
  is not updated with these fields but will be required to record the new fields through
  the AIR site using the ‘update encounter’ function, as soon as practical.
• Alternatively, vaccination providers can report vaccinations to the AIR directly, using
  the AIR site.

Information on reporting information to the AIR, is available on the Services Australia website here.