Only half of centres can vax children

As parents rush to get their children vaccinated before they go back to school, some are being turned away from their local GP and pharmacy.

That’s because only half of the vaccination centres spread across the country — 500 out of 1000 — are available to give jabs to children.

A top GP has criticised the public health messaging about where and how parents and caregivers can get the vaccine.

Yesterday was the first day children aged five to 11 could officially roll up their sleeves to get their first paediatric Covid dose.

Bryan Betty, medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP), said the confusing messaging was probably a reflection of the roll-out being shortly after Christmas and New Year.

He said while there were roughly 1000 centres where adults could receive the jab, only about 500 were accredited for paediatric vaccines.

“So there’s a bit of discrepancy. We expect the number of centres to build over the next few weeks,” Betty said.

He urged parents and caregivers to ring ahead or use the Book My Vaccine website.

To be accredited to administer Covid vaccines to children, health professionals had to be up to speed with how the vaccine should be given to children and get ministry sign-off.

“This was always going to be problematic over Christmas in terms of reduced capacity [of health professionals] in the system,” Betty said.

Auckland Covid vaccination programme clinical lead Dr Anthony Jordan said some sites were yet to be available online and that was partly to do with the timing of staff returning from the summer break.

“Once all of our paediatric sites are open, there’ll be a lot more options and availability, especially through the booking system,” Jordan said.

Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand Chief Executive Andrew Gaudin said the rollout of the paediatric vaccinations was being managed by individual DHBs so the guild didn’t have an overview.

“However, we have not been advised of any systemic issues with the supply and distribution of vaccines for the paediatric vaccination rollout.”

Earlier this month, a ministry spokesperson said deliveries of the child vaccine doses were scheduled to start from January 10, to ensure all sites nationally had child doses available.

We expect the number of centres to build up over the next few weeks Bryan Betty