“Big numbers” of people will have been vaccinated by the summer if other brands become available after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the head of the Government’s vaccination programme has said.
Professor Brian MacCraith told RTÉ radio’s Claire Byrne show that at present, the only thing he was certain of was that 40,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would arrive each week.
The pace of the vaccination programme was dependent on availability of the vaccine, he added, and if all the vaccines arrive “we will hit big numbers [of people being vaccinated] in the summer.”
Prof MacCraith said he was cautious about giving absolute guarantees about numbers.
“We're assured of just over 40,000 vaccine doses arriving from Pfizer per week. That's the only thing we're absolutely certain of. Just multiply the number of weeks left in the quarter and that's what the commitment is,” Prof MacCraith said.
In the next week, residents of 180 nursing homes will have been vaccinated and the programme will continue over the weekend.
By the end of quarter one of the year, over 75,000 care home residents and 60,000 staff will have received their two doses of the vaccine, he said.
Asked if GPs would be prioritised for vaccination, Prof MacCraith said they would play a crucial role and that vaccinators were top of the list to be vaccinated themselves.
With regard to the current “laborious system,” the professor acknowledged there had been some glitches. In such cases, administrators were on site to take hand records, he said.
The IT system was fit for purpose, he said, and he had confidence in it. There will eventually be the ability for people to self-register for the vaccine. It was important that the system be as user-friendly as possible, he added.
New deals
It comes as the European Union reached a new deal on Friday with Pfizer and BioNTech for 300 million additional doses of their Covid-19 vaccine, according to the head of the European Commission.
The move would give the EU nearly half of the firms' global output for 2021. The new agreement comes on top of another order for 300 million doses that the bloc agreed with the vaccine’s manufacturers in November.
A second Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Moderna Inc was also approved for use in the EU in recent days, with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar saying its authorisation will allow the country to increase the numbers vaccinated each week by the thousands.
