Control of mandatory vaccination in Austria: How does the vaccination register work?

While German politicians are still debating a central vaccination register, there is already one in Austria. But how should it be used to monitor the planned mandatory vaccination?

It sounded more like a side note that the Austrian Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein dropped when he presented the draft law on mandatory vaccination about a week ago: “For mandatory vaccination, the data of the central register with the central vaccination register and the epidemiological registration system are required.”

The central vaccination register has not been used extensively in Austria for a long time. According to the Ministry of Health, the first ideas for this came ten years ago; pilot phases and the legal basis followed. Before Corona, however, the register was nothing more than a framework. A framework that we now want to build on: “So-called vaccination deadlines take place every three months. And on those dates, all persons who are subject to mandatory vaccination must be vaccinated or have a reason for an exception entered in the central vaccination register.”

View status via electronic vaccination certificate

The doctors are responsible for reporting to the central vaccination register. In the case of Covid and flu vaccinations, they are even obliged to do so. Citizens can view their vaccinations using the electronic vaccination card. Both are linked.

The data is managed by Elga GmbH, which also operates the system for the Elga electronic health record. It is borne by the Austrian federal government, the federal states and the social security funds to one third each. While you can – for data protection reasons, for example – deregister from all possible Elga services, this does not apply to the electronic vaccination pass and thus the vaccination register, Elga managing director Franz Leisch recently explained on ORF: “If you deregister from Elga, you lose them Advantages – for example, that the doctors can make prescriptions by telephone or the doctor can access previous reports. But you keep your vaccination certificate. “

Reminder for the stitch

In this way, the compulsory vaccination can be checked in any case. So anyone who appears in the population register but not in the vaccination register – and who is also not listed as freshly recovered in the epidemiological reporting system – will probably receive mail from the state for the first time in mid-March: a reminder to please get the sting by the next vaccination deadline .