Pharmacy Daily | Pharmacy COVAX activation too slow

THE health and wellbeing of Australians is unnecessarily put at risk because of the Federal Government's failure to activate approved community pharmacies to join the COVID-19 vaccination (COVAX) rollout, Pharmacy Guild of Australia Queensland Branch Acting President, Chris Owen, believes.

Welcoming confirmation that 101 regional and rural pharmacies in the State have been given the green-light to join the 49 stores already administering COVAX by the Queensland Government, Owen called for all stores to be onboarded.

"Including 49 pharmacies in the rollout was a great first step," he said.

"A further 101 community pharmacies in rural and remote parts of Queensland are yet to be fully onboarded in the rollout but a lot more needs to be done.

"The Queensland Government has recognised this and requested the Commonwealth activate all community pharmacies in Queensland.

"The Queensland Government clearly understands the value of community pharmacy - why doesn't Canberra?

"The lack of action in allowing all community pharmacies to actively vaccinate smacks of bureaucratic mismanagement and a bias towards other primary healthcare models.

"Not having all community pharmacies as local COVID-19 vaccination hubs puts Queenslanders at greater risk of transmission.

"Queenslanders are now having to endure further social and economic despair due to lockdowns."

Meanwhile, Guild Western Australian Branch President, Andrew Ngeow, told The West Australian that plans to give the go-ahead for 67 community pharmacies in rural and remote parts of the state to administer COVAX from mid-Jul was too little, too late.

"Globally, the countries with good COVAX rates have used their pharmacies," he said.

"As we fall further behind equivalent countries in achieving broad vaccination, there is a simple lesson for the Commonwealth Government, which is that it simply makes no sense to limit opportunities for the public to access the COVID-19 vaccine by delaying the involvement of pharmacies."

On the east coast, NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, revealed a plan for addition COVAX sites across the state will be announced tomorrow, with approved regional and rural pharmacies potentially set to get the green-light to start administering COVID-19 shots.