A vaccine booster campaign against Covid-19 is being planned for the winter.
The Business Post reports today that health officials will give people top-up jabs using single-dose Pfizer shots.
The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) will use available immunity data to decide when the revaccination campaign will begin.
It is believed most mass vaccination centres will begin to close in the autumn, and the rollout will move to pharmacies and GPs.
Professor of Immunology at Trinity College Dublin, Kingston Mills, says booster vaccines will be needed due to the Delta variant: “The worrying thing for Ireland is that we are using a mixture of the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines. The Pfizer and Moderna are giving very good protection against it.
“It is not the same case for the AstraZeneca vaccine, it really is not as good as protecting people against the Delta variant as the other two vaccines.”
The news comes as people aged 39 will be able to register today for vaccination, with those aged 38 from tomorrow, 37 from Tuesday, 36 from Wednesday, and those aged 35 from Thursday, June 24th.
As The Irish Times reports, A total of 3,434,053 doses have been given with more than 60 per cent of the population having received at least one dose and 31 per cent fully vaccinated.
The HSE’s chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said on RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor show that all first doses of 40-49 age group is expected to be completed in the next couple of weeks, with their second dose of mRNA vaccine a month later.
He expects all the 30-39 group to receive their first jab by the end of July or the start of August, with the 20-29 group getting their first jab after that. Dr Henry said he was “confident based on current supplies” that the cohort can be done by September.
