COMMUNITY pharmacy's COVID-19 vaccination campaign is set for a boost with 1,800 stores to receive doses of the Moderna vaccine by the end of the week.
Pharmacy Guild of Australia National President, Trent Twomey, told Pharmacy Daily that plans to roll out the vaccine to 1,200 pharmacies a week over the next three weeks were accelerated after the Federal Government reached a deal with the European Union for an additional million doses.
"The Minister for Trade [Dan Tehan], with the Prime Minister [Scott Morrison] and the Health Minister [Greg Hunt] have been able to secure an extra million Moderna vaccines for Australians to be distributed through community pharmacies, which means instead of 10 million Moderna doses arriving this calendar year there will be 11 million," Twomey said.
"And instead of one million arriving this month there will be two million.
"The other thing the Guild has been able to negotiate with the Prime Minister and the Health Minister is that there will be an accelerated rollout.
"So instead of three tranches of 1,200 [pharmacies being on-boarded], there will now be two tranches of 1,800, bringing us up to 3,600 pharmacies."
Twomey added that the Guild wanted to encourage pharmacy owners who have not signed up to participate in the program to apply, noting that challenges related to the concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine were not an issue for the Moderna shot.
"We'd really love to have 4,000 pharmacies participating by the end of the month," he said.
"There has been hesitancy around the AstraZeneca vaccine, but there is no need to be hesitant around the Moderna vaccine.
"It's the mRNA technology, it has a similar - if not better - safety profile, and a similar - if not better - efficacy profile than Pfizer, it's approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for all Australians 12 years of age and older.
"So demand for this vaccine is going to significantly outpace and outstrip the demand that we've seen to date for AstraZeneca."
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