A review of the State’s Covid-19 vaccine priority list is underway, according to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.
The Irish Examiner reports that the review could see some vulnerable people receive a vaccine sooner than currently expected.
Speaking on Monday, Minister Donnelly said the decision not to administer the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to those over the age of 70 impacts on the priority sequencing list.
The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) has said the AstraZeneca jab will only be administered to adults under the age of 70, due to a lack of data regarding its efficacy among older people.
The State’s priority sequencing list, drawn up by the NIAC, is based on the risk from Covid-19 to each group.
Minister Donnelly said: “NIAC is doing a more detailed review now, particularly of that list, to make sure that those who are more vulnerable to this are a priority.”
Ramped up rollout
The Minister said he expects a report from NIAC in the “next day or two” and hopes to bring it to Cabinet by next Tuesday.
It comes as the State’s vaccine rollout has ramped up this week to include those aged over 85.
People over the age of 85 living in the community are the third group prioritised for the vaccine under the current rollout plan, after people over the age of 65 in long-term residential facilities and healthcare workers.
It is envisaged that up to 80,000 people aged over 85 will receive a jab from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna over the next three weeks.
Vaccinations are now taking place in local GP practices around the country, marking the first time that vaccines have been administered outside a hospital or nursing home setting.
Waterford great-grandmother Margaret Power became one of the first people over the age of 85 in Ireland to receive the vaccine in the community on Tuesday morning.
Yesterday, the locations of 37 mass vaccination centres where jabs will be rolled out to the wider population in the coming months were published by the Department of Health, with at least one centre attributed to each county.
The Taoiseach has defended the chosen locations of the centres after various local TDs raised concerns that people will have to travel some distance to their vaccination centre.
