Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said that he expects a decision in the coming weeks from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) about extending the booster campaign to younger cohorts.
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Mr Coveney said that he believed booster vaccines had a role to play in bringing down case numbers. On a recent visit to Israel and Palestine he had seen the dramatic impact a booster campaign had on the number of cases in hospital and intensive care.
As immunity waned, it was definite that booster vaccines had a role to play, he said.“This won’t be confined to the over-60s. It will extend to the younger cohort too.”
Niac would advise the Government and he expected a decision in the coming weeks, he added.
It comes as the Irish Medical Organisation says GP surgeries, hospitals and ICU units are under "extraordinary pressure" from the high levels of Covid-19.
The IMO says the recent rise in cases will mean fewer beds are available to treat non-Covid cases and limit the ability to tackle waiting lists.
There are 486 patients in hospital with the virus as of last night, including 75 in intensive care.
Speaking to Newstalk, RCSI senior lecturer, Eoghan De Barra, says covid patients are taking up a lot of room in ICU: "Well I think the numbers yesterday showed a slight decline, so we have been heading to about a 100.
"We have been stabilising at the moment in about the high 70s. Week to week we will see how things go, but that represents about 20 per cent of the ICU capacity in the country for a single disease."
He says it is significant because the health service is coming from a place where there is not a huge number of ICU beds to start with.
Additional reporting by Vivienne Clarke
