ACT health minister Meegan Fitzharris said on Thursday it was an affordable community-based health measure.

"This will allow [pharmacists] to add to the types of health services that they can deliver," Ms Fitzharris said.

"What we do know and what we saw last year with the flu vaccination [...] is that increasing availability and accessibility of health services is extremely improtant."

"Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory illness that poses a serious risk to young children and immune-compromised people."

Wanniassa pharmacist Elise Apolloni said anything that helped increase herd immunity was a positive thing.

"The vulnerable people in our community can't get a vaccination. If you're a little baby you can't be immunised for influenza when you're four-weeks-old, so it's our responsibility as a community to make sure we're all protected so we won't be passing that on to people," Ms Apolloni said.

Ms Apolloni said people were busy and with pharmacists typically open longer hours than GPs, it would allow more Canberrans to get vaccinated.

"Pharmacists are the most accessible health professionals in Australia," Ms Apolloni said.

ACT's chief health officer Dr Paul Kelly said whooping cough was with us all the time.

"It does change from year to year, so we always have some whooping cough cases in the community," Mr Kelly said.

"The more vaccination we can have in the community, that will certainly assist to decrease the number of cases."

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia's ACT president Patrick Reid said the government's decision was based on the success of flu vaccinations provided by Canberra pharmacists.

"PSA applauds the ACT Government's decision to expand pharmacist-delivered vaccinations, which is a positive step forward for improving health in our local community," Mr Reid said.