Hundreds on list at each pharmacy
Vulnerable 18-35s face waiting until next month for Janssen
ALL of the 800 pharmacies administering vaccines across the country now have ‘several hundred’ young people on their waiting lists, the Irish Pharmacy Union has confirmed to the Irish Mail on Sunday .
The organisation’s secretary general Darragh O’Loughlin said all of the available 80,000 one-shot Janssen vaccines will be distributed to pharmacies by Tuesday.
However, the next consignment of between 200,000 to 300,000 doses will not be delivered to pharmacies until next month, as health authorities attempt to vaccinate the ‘new vulnerable’ 18-35 cohort as quickly as possible in the face of rapidly surging Covid-19 cases.
People aged 18 to 30 can also register for a Janssen jab, but pharmacists are being urged not to provide confirmed dates unless they have available supplies.
Ireland is now in a race to vaccinate its younger population as the Delta variant takes hold, accounting for around 80% of Covid cases here.
On Friday, the HSE registration portal opened for those aged 25-29 with all those in that category able to register straight away. The total number of registrations for those aged 20-29 is 281,692, according to the HSE.
On Monday, those aged 18 to 24 will be able to ‘opt in’ through the portal for an AstraZeneca vaccine. But as mRNA vaccines are the preferred doses for this age group, they will be given a target date for Pfizer or Moderna if they would prefer to wait.
Some 800 pharmacies are administering the one-shot Janssen jabs. Around 350 of these are also administering the Pfizer vaccine.
Pharmacists were able to administer 9,000 vaccines a day this week and by Tuesday they will have received all of the 80,000 available Janssen doses.
Mr O’Loughlin said pharmacists would be happy to play a greater role in the national inoculation programme, especially with regard to the Pfizer vaccine.
The HSE only allows pharmacies located close to vaccination centres ~to administer the Pfizer jab, which the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) boss describes as ‘a judgement call’.
Mr O’Loughlin told the MoS: ‘What might suit the HSE, may not suit the general public. We’ve seen 11,000 people in the over-50s wait for their vaccine from their pharmacist instead of the vaccine centres and that’s likely because they wanted advice from someone they trusted.
‘The feedback we’re getting is that many people just wanted to ask questions with a person they knew about taking the vaccine. Pharmacists would definitely be happy to play a larger role in administering the vaccine.’
National director of the Covid vaccination programme Damien McCallion said the HSE was very confident in its Pfizer supply and would be able to use some of its buffer stock over the coming weeks to increase vaccination.
HSE chief Paul Reid also said any ‘trigger that can be pulled’ in order to bring forward younger cohorts as quickly as possible will be pulled and this involves accelerating the use of any available Pfizer stocks.
Mr Reid insists it remains likely that 80% of the population will have received a first dose by the end of August.
‘What I would say to everybody is if we had all the supplies tomorrow, we would do it tomorrow,’ he stressed.
‘We don’t, our supply lines are bringing us to the end of August, getting close to that 80%, but that’s a long way away in terms of what we’re seeing from Delta.’
Around 300,000 vaccines were administered last week and the HSE aims to administer the same level of doses this week.
The MoS has asked the HSE and the Department of Health for details of confirmed deliveries over the coming months and projected deliveries.
If more vaccine supplies do materialise, the HSE said it has the capacity to ramp up the inoculation programme. It confirmed there are now 5,000 trained vaccinators across the country, with 1,459 employed at vaccination centres.
The HSE said vaccine centres in some areas will be extending their opening hours to match the increased demand from those in the young age cohorts who are registering for a vaccine through the portal. It said 90% of vaccines are administered within seven days of arriving in the country.
‘What might suit the HSE may not suit the public’