Area pharmacy owner seeks additional doses
Fearing a shortage will come, the owner of Doctor’s Orders Pharmacy is requesting more doses of covid-19 vaccine to get as many eligible Jefferson County residents injected.
Lelan Stice said Monday his pharmacy hopes to secure 3,000 doses per week from the Arkansas Department of Health, which is almost three times as much as Doctor’s Orders is currently receiving.
“We’re still having an issue of, we don’t have enough doses where we can get everybody where we want,” Lelan Stice said. “We’re getting one tray per week from the [Arkansas] Department of Health, which is about 1,100 doses.”
Danyelle McNeil, Arkansas Department of Health public information officer, said the state receives 38 trays of Pfizer/BioNTech-manufactured vaccine but clarified each tray contains 975 doses, though additional doses are available in each vial. The Food and Drug Administration on Jan. 6 changed language in its emergency use authorization statement to reflect that six doses instead of five can be extracted from each vial, which would save vaccine for eligible persons who need shots.
She said Jefferson Regional Medical Center would receive two trays of Pfizer prime, or first, doses out of 19 distributed in Arkansas. The state’s other 19 trays
are booster shots, which are recommended for the effectiveness of the vaccine.
Despite the fact just 62.8% of doses received in Arkansas have been administered as of Sunday, storage issues along with a reported accelerated number of injections have made having enough vaccine a challenge. McNeil said doses have not had to be discarded due to expired shelf life and added that facilities have transferred vaccine to other sites based on demand.
Doctor’s Orders locations in Pine Bluff and White Hall secure the Pfizer/BioNTech-manufactured vaccine, which requires storage in extreme-cold temperatures and can be handled easier in larger-populated communities.
Stice said a pharmacist who administers the Pfizer vaccine has 5 hours to complete a vial once that vaccine enters the syringe before it has to be thrown away. A vial, otherwise, can be stored in a refrigerator for up to five days.
Those who take the Pfizer vaccine are asked to receive a booster shot within three weeks.
The Moderna vaccine, which has been given at Doctor’s Orders’ Star City location, does not require extremely cold storage and is given four weeks in between the first and second doses.
Stice estimates Jefferson County had 3,300 doses at the start of this week, but he fears that won’t be enough to administer to the elderly population that’s currently eligible in Arkansas, based on what he is seeing. Stice said when a block of registrations is opened, the appointments are filled within 20 minutes as people 70 and older signed up.
People 70 and older and higher education, kindergarten-through-12th grade and early child care workers have been eligible to be vaccinated under the Arkansas Department of Health plan since Jan. 18, although Doctor’s Orders began inoculating faculty members in local school districts a few days in advance. Health care workers, first responders and residents of long-term care have been eligible since Dec. 14.
Stice said Doctor’s Orders has vaccinated more than 3,000 people since Jan. 5, when the pharmacy began giving shots to healthcare workers. He expected the pharmacy to vaccinate 360 people, mostly those 70 and older, Monday and 360 more today, with another clinic available Wednesday at the Pine Bluff location at 2302 W. 28th Ave. Those eligible and interested in being vaccinated can register at injecttoprotect.com.
A larger population including those ages 16-64 with highrisk medical conditions and those 65 and older are expected to receive shots starting in the spring.