In response to a pertussis epidemic and to provide early protection to young infants, it was recommended by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation in March 2009, and promoted in that year during epidemics in New South Wales and Tasmania (later in other jurisdictions), that immunisation providers give the first dose of DTPa vaccine at 6 weeks of age instead of 8 weeks of age. Figure 16 shows that prior to this very few children received the vaccine dose at less than 8 weeks of age, but for New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory the percentage rose over the next 5 years with more than 70% of children receiving the dose prior to 8 weeks of age in December 2014.