Full steam ahead for vaccine rollout

Blenheim’s vaccine centre has been steadily jabbing people since it opened, with a few vaccines due to expire offered to an ‘‘emergency’’ list not considered priority at this stage.

The clinic opened on April 28, a first for the region that up until then had only been administering the vaccine in outreach clinics.

Marlborough primary health organisation primary care general manager Sue Allen said the clinic had been really busy, administering 150 to 180 vaccines a day.

There had been some vaccines due expire that had been given to people in the community not considered a priority at this stage, Allen said.

‘‘At the end of the day, if we have vaccines that are due to expire, we have what we call a B-list, and the B-list is an emergency contact list,’’ she said.

‘‘We try to get people that can come in . . . urgently and get vaccines.

‘‘It happened to start with because we didn’t have the numbers coming through, but now we’re up and running, it will be absolutely minimised.

‘‘I think it’s actually opened itself up to be abused a little bit, and we’re pulling that back, because people now think that anyone can come in and get one, but they can’t.’’

In March, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Health said one of the unique challenges of the Pfizer/ Biontech vaccine was that once a dose of the vaccine reached above minus 70 degrees Celsius it expired in five days, even when kept in a fridge.

Once the vaccine had been removed from the fridge it had to be mixed with saline within two hours and then used within six hours.

Allen said they planned to have most people in the community receive their vaccine through the Henry St centre but would still have about one outreach clinic a week.

‘‘That’s sort of looking at our kauma¯tua clinics and going to the marae, and then perhaps looking at rural settings a little later, once the vaccine opens up a little bit more.’’

On May 1, another 1.7 million people became eligible for the Covid19 vaccine, including everyone over the age of 65, but there are nowhere near enough supplies for all of them to get the jab immediately.

‘‘A lot of the over 65s I think are going to their clinic hoping to get vaccinated, but they just need to be patient,’’ she said.

‘‘We’re doing really well across Nelson/marlborough, we’re ahead of our planning, which is fabulous, but people just need to be patient, it will open up and there are enough vaccines for everybody.’’

In Marlborough, frontline workers, border workers, disability support and kauma¯ tua were the priority list for vaccinations, Allen said.

‘‘The GP practices are helping with the over-65s of Ma¯ori and Pasifika descent, and people with really chronic conditions and high complex needs,’’ she said.

‘‘We have got a national schedule, we can’t go outside that. It’s not something that we have a lot of control about.

‘‘So we are led by the ministry and in partnership with iwi and kauma¯ tua, so we’re trying to do the best we can.’’

The Government hit 103 per cent of its vaccine target last week with over 300,000 doses now administered.

According to Ministry of Health figures, Nelson Marlborough was ahead of schedule achieving 146 per cent of its vaccination plan to May 2.

It had planned that just under 11,849 would receive the Pfizer/ Biontech vaccine by May 2 but 17,339 individuals had received the vaccine by that date.