SA plots pharmacy COVAX rollout

SOUTH Australia Premier, Steven Marshall, is set to give the greenlight for a record number of rural and remote pharmacies to join the COVID-19 vaccine (COVAX) rollout.

Announcing plans to activate community pharmacies as COVAX sites, Marshall said the SA Government was “looking at about 100 rural and remote pharmacies” to take part in the expansion of vaccination services in the State.

“South Australians have now received more than 425,000 COVID vaccination doses as we ramp up the rollout throughout our state,” he said.

“Making it easier for people to be vaccinated is another key plank in our COVID-19 plan, which is keeping South Australians safe and our economy strong during the pandemic and we now have more people employed than ever before in the history of the state.”

SA Health Minister, Stephen Wade, said “it makes perfect sense to enable the community pharmacy workforce to provide more options for people to get their COVAX, especially in rural and remote areas”.

“Community pharmacists are trained vaccinators who already play a fundamental part in providing access to immunisation for South Australians, administering seasonal influenza as well as a range of other vaccines,” he said.

“There is already a strong community acceptance and uptake of pharmacist vaccinations in Australia and there is existing capability within the pharmacy network.”

Pharmaceutical Society of Australia SA/NT Branch President, Robyn Johns, described the decision as “pleasing”, noting that “bringing community pharmacists on board will expedite the completion of the rollout protecting more people sooner”.

With changes to the storage requirement for the PfizerBioNTech vaccine recently approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Johns also said “all vaccine providers including community pharmacists - must be able to support all patients by administering the most appropriate vaccine for them”.