Councils to receive new funding for flu vaccinations

Starting Monday 7 July 2025, local government immunisation services can now claim a $20.05 payment when they administer the free flu vaccine to children aged between six months and five years.

How the program works

To receive the payment, councils must:

• give the flu vaccine to eligible children
• record all vaccines on the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR)
• fill out a fortnightly claim using the official SA Health Tax Invoice (council) template
• email the claim to healthimmunisationadmin@sa.gov.au.

The number of vaccines claimed will be checked against AIR records. This helps ensure the claims are accurate.

This program funding model coincides with recent changes that now allow pharmacists to give flu vaccines to all ages, for the remainder of the 2025 influenza vaccination program.

So far this year, there have been 10,569 flu cases reported in South Australia – a 70 per cent increase on the 6,212 cases recorded at the same time last year.

Role of local government in immunisation

Local government plays a vital role in helping maintain high immunisation coverage in preschool and school-age cohorts across South Australia.

Under the South Australian Public Health Act 2011, councils must assist the delivery of immunisation services to communities – however, they receive minimal government funding to support this work.

LGA welcomes this new funding stream as some councils have reported the net cost for running public immunisation clinics being as much as $40,000 a year.

Find out more

Councils looking for more information about the new flu vaccine payment can call the SA Health Immunisation Section on 1300 232 272.