Nearly 4000 pregnant women have accepted an offer of a free vaccine against whooping cough since the initiative was launched at the start of the year.
Of the 3958 women who had taken part, 336 were in the Southern District Health Board region.
Associate Health Minister Jo Goodhew's office released the figures to the Otago Daily Times.
''It is encouraging that almost 4000 pregnant women have chosen to be vaccinated against pertussis so far this year. '
'This is positive news and I urge all women in their third trimester to consider getting vaccinated,'' Ms Goodhew said through a spokeswoman.
The Boostrix vaccine programme was launched in response to the whooping cough outbreak that began in August 2011. As of April this year, more than 8800 whooping cough cases had been recorded since the outbreak began.
The Ministry of Health would review the programme once the outbreak had ended, Ms Goodhew said.
A similar programme running in the United Kingdom since last year has been credited with reducing an outbreak there.
Also known as pertussis, whooping cough is a bacterial infection which can cause serious complications or death in babies.
