Newly released figures from the NSW Department of Health show that at the end of September, 96.7 per cent of the region’s one-year-olds were fully immunised, compared to a NSW average of 94 per cent and a national figure of 94.2 per cent.

Not only are the latest Murrumbidgee figures above the national average, but they show steady improvement since the start of the year, when 94.3 per cent of one-year-olds were up-to-date with their needles.

The results for two-year-olds show a similar result, with 93.6 per cent fully immunised in Murrumbidgee, a figure which is higher than both the NSW and national averages.

The September figure is also higher than the 92 per cent recorded in March.

While the latest figure for five-year-olds in the Murrumbidgee of 95.4 per cent is down slightly compared to March, it too is higher than the state and national averages.

In January, the “no jab, no play” laws were beefed up, with the removal of the so-called conscientious objector exemptions to make it much harder to enrol a child in daycare or school without full immunisations.

Director of public health for the Murrumbidgee Local Health Area, Tracey Oakman, has praised the efforts of GPs, health workers and parents in keeping the region’s immunisation rates so high.

Ms Oakman believes the ‘no jab, no play’ amendments are just one in a suite of strategies that are convincing parents to make sure their children are immunised.

But she has warned against complacency, and said that with less outbreaks of preventable diseases being recorded, parents may think it is no longer necessary to have their children immunised.

“The second you stop immunising, those diseases will start to come back,” she said.

“We need to maintain the levels so we can maintain pool protection, the so-called herd immunity.

“For example, we might say polio has been eradicated in Australia, but there has been an outbreak in Papua New Guinea and that’s just a short plane trip away.”

Ms Oakman said with the Murrumbidgee’s rates now so high, it was important for parents not only to vaccinate their children, but to make sure it was done when the injections were due.

“Having children vaccinations within a couple of weeks of when they are due is our goal,” she said.

High vaccination rates are thought to be one of the reasons that just 40,000 flu cases were recorded in Australia between January and September, compared to almost 230,000 in 2017.