Pharmacy Daily | Pharmacy COVAX needed long-term

GOVERNMENTS across all Australian jurisdictions need to urgently engage community pharmacies to roll out both AstraZeneca and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines (COVAX), Pharmacy Guild of Australia NSW Branch Committee Member, Rick Samimi, believes.

The former Guild NSW Branch President, told Pharmacy Daily that the current rollout campaign urged policymakers across the country to bring pharmacists onboard both for the current initial immunisation campaign and to administer booster shots in the future.

"Whilst it is clear there are supply issues, erratic planning of best channels of distribution of vaccines has also been a major factor, with bypassing the community pharmacy network as most obvious ...resulting in a slow immunisation rate as a result, to the point that now Governments are searching for outlets for vaccination when pharmacies remain idly waiting to be called upon," he said.

"However, more critically, it is a major concern that there appears to be little discussion or publicly available information on future planning for 2022 and beyond when annual mass vaccination will most probably be on the cards for many years to come, considering the speed of mutation of the virus.

"We can't get to Feb or Mar next year and not have a plan in place [for long-term immunisation campaigns].

"Governments should be planning now to ensure smooth supply and provision of vaccination from pharmacies and GP surgeries ASAP this year and critically longer term in 2022 and beyond.

"It appears that our leaders seem to be focused on solving a political issue now, an initially well-managed public health issue which due to poor vaccine implementation is fast becoming a major political headache for everyone."

Samimi welcomed the NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian's announcement this morning that plans were underway to activate community pharmacies across the state as COVAX sites.

Meanwhile, Guild National President, Trent Twomey, noted that more than 1,000 regional and rural pharmacies will be actively administering COVAX by mid-Aug, across every State and Territory, with the exception of the ACT.

Speaking on Nine News last night, Twomey called on State and Territory leaders "to remove the ban on the remaining 3,000 pharmacies in major metropolitan areas" to enable them to administer COVAX shots.