Pharmacy Daily | Guild wants to tackle COVAX issues

PHARMACY owners are keen to get on the front foot to tackle logistics issues currently plaguing the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines (COVAX) through general practices, before they join the national campaign.

Pharmacy Guild of Australia National President, Trent Twomey, told Pharmacy Daily that the organisation was concerned about reports from GPs that there have been errors with vaccine deliveries, including issues around cold chain.

Under the Federal Government's rollout plan, DHL had been granted the distribution rights for the Pfizer/Bio NTech vaccine, while Linfox has been appointed to ship the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine, which community pharmacists will administer.

Both Twomey and his predessor as Guild National President, George Tambassies, have expressed a desire for the Government to consider recruiting Community Service Obligation (CSO) wholesalers with a history of successful cold chain management and delivering to community pharmacies, to support distribution efforts (PD 16 Mar).

"We are worried that there have been errors with deliveries to GPs," Twomey said.

"We have reached out to Linfox and they haven't returned our calls... we want to be proactive [in addressing distribution issues]."

Twomey noted that community pharmacies are unlikely to be providing COVAX until Jun, following delays in getting expression of interest submissions approved by the Pharmacy Programs Administrator (PPA).

Pharmacies had originally been expected to hear if they had been successful in their application to become administration sites for COVAX on 19 Mar, however the PPA is now due to provide an update on 12 Apr.

"Hopefully we'll have greater clarity then," Twomey said.

"The next logical step is to activate community pharmacies to ensure we do have that widespread access.

"Most Australians, in fact 97% of Australians, live within 2.5 km of a community pharmacy.

"Pharmacists manage supply chain logistics of medicines for a living.

"That's what we do, and we can do it better than any other healthcare provider because we do it day in and day out, and that includes cold chain logistics."