BABIES and toddlers may require multiple injections of four new vaccines from later this year as the Federal Government seeks to expand dramatically the national immunisation program.

The Government is considering adding jabs to prevent chicken pox, meningococcal disease and pneumococcal disease to the standard free vaccination schedule.

It is also planning to replace the existing oral immunisation against polio with an injection to prevent an extremely rare side effect -- paralysis.

A working party is also examining whether adults should be encouraged to have a booster vaccination to prevent whooping cough after a mass outbreak of the disease last year.

Even though more than 90 per cent of babies were vaccinated against the disease, there were 9000 cases of whooping cough recorded last year.

Half of these cases occurred in adults who could pass the disease on to vulnerable infants.

Dr Peter McIntyre, deputy director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research at Westmead Children's Hospital, said there was widespread evidence supporting the safety of multiple-dose vaccines.

"Babies are designed to cope with lots of new bugs they encounter," he said.

He said links drawn between autism and the triple-antigen measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in a British medical journal had been proven false.

The new vaccines could be required from later this year and there will be a complete overhaul of the existing vaccination schedule early next year when a new schedule is printed.

A Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing spokesman said the Government was also considering ways to combine new and existing vaccines into a single shot to reduce the number of injections required by children at each immunisation visit.

Pneumococcal disease is a bacterial infection which kills about 11 per cent of children it infects.

It infects the lining around the brain, the bloodstream and joints and lungs.

There are about 750 serious cases of the disease in Australia each year.

It is estimated that vaccination against it could result in 2000 fewer hospital admissions, 85,000 fewer middle ear infections and 3500 fewer ear grommet insertions.

Vaccinating against the disease could also help reduce the use of anti-biotics to treat respiratory tract infections and reduce the growing resistance to antibiotics.

There were 671 cases of meningococcal disease last year.

It kills about 35 Australians a year.

The infection produces flu-like symptoms, high fevers, neck pain and a distinctive rash.

About 37 per cent of cases could be prevented by a vaccine against the C strain of the disease.

A vaccine against the more common B strain of meningococcal is still being developed.

Chicken pox is a highly infectious disease which causes itchy blisters and can have serious side-effects in adults.

A vaccine is available from general practitioners but parents have to pay for it. Although chicken pox is not life threatening, it is responsible for considerable economic loss causing parents to take time off work to care for sick children.

Former federal health minister Michael Wooldridge made the immunisation program a national priority after immunisation levels slumped to just over 50 per cent.

The latest figures show more than 90 per cent of babies aged under 12 months are now fully immunised.

Daily Telegraph