Sunshine Coast has lowest rate of fully vaccinated four-year-olds in Queensland, Central West has highest rate THE Sunshine Coast has the lowest rate of fully vaccinated four-year-olds in Queensland at just 88.5 per cent, Queensland Health figures show. That compares to the state's best performing region, the Central West, including Longreach, which has 100 per cent of four-year-olds receiving all their vaccinations. Across the state, 92.1 per cent of four-year-olds have been fully vaccinated, leaving almost one in 10 children unprotected. Queensland Health's communicable diseases unit senior director Sonya Bennett said a child's four-year-old vaccinations were particularly important to boost immunity against serious diseases, such as whooping cough and measles. Dr Bennett said of the eight per cent of four-year-olds who remained unvaccinated, about a third had parents who were objectors to immunisation. Parents of the other children generally supported vaccination but "for some reason" were not getting them immunised. "With one in 10 children not immunised, not only are they at risk, but they also put at risk others around them who can't be immunised or whose immune systems aren't working properly," she said. No-one wants to see a small baby too young to be immunised struggling to breathe with whooping cough or a little child admitted to hospital with measles or meningococcal disease. These are very real scenarios without immunisation and the only way to prevent it happening is to get children immunised. Dr Bennett said immunisation was one of the most significant medical achievements of the last century, saving millions of lives. "We don't see diseases like diphtheria and polio in our community because of public immunisation programs," she said. If vaccination rates fall we could start to see these diseases return. Dr Bennett said unvaccinated people travelling to countries where diseases, such as measles, were still prevalent, posed a problem. "In some cases these people are contracting diseases and are bringing them back to Australia, infecting others," she said. The last two cases of measles in Queensland were as a result of people travelling to the Philippines and then returning with the illness. Regional percentages of fully vaccinated four-year-olds: Cairns and Hinterland: 92.6 per cent. Cape York: 94.1 per cent. Central Queensland: 92.9 per cent. Central West: 100 per cent. Darling Downs: 94.2 per cent. Gold Coast: 89 per cent. Mackay: 93.2 per cent. Metro North: 92.8 per cent. Metro South: 92.1 per cent. North West: 93.7 per cent. South West: 96.2 per cent. Sunshine Coast: 88.5 per cent. Torres Strait-Northern Peninsula: 94.1 per cent. Townsville: 92.7 per cent. West Moreton: 92.7 per cent. Wide Bay: 94.1 per cent. Queensland: 92.1 per cent.