Reduced vaccines for over-80s next week due to supply problem

Deliveries of Covid-19 vaccines for the over-80s are to be reduced again next week due to shipments from manufacturers being smaller than anticipated.

For the second week in a row, a 15 per cent across-the-board cut in doses delivered to GPs is being applied because of the reduced shipments of the Moderna vaccine.

It is expected the reduction in supplies will be made up in subsequent weeks, according to Dr Denis McCauley, chair of the GP committee of the Irish Medical Organisation.

The vaccine rollout by GPs is continuing as planned, despite some logistical “screw-ups”, according to Dr McCauley. “The show goes on, and it goes on effectively, though some of the static would make you think otherwise,” he said.

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From next week the HSE will give doctors at least a week’s advance notice of future delivery dates, he added. In recent weeks some doctors have complained of receiving only 24 or 48 hours notice of deliveries, while in other cases the postponement of deliveries has forced GPs to hastily rearrange appointments for older patients.

Dr McCauley said he believed the remaining over-85s who had not been vaccinated in the planned three-week period were immunised this week. “I haven’t heard that they haven’t been done.”

About 50,000 over-80s have been immunised so far as part of the three-week phase of vaccination for this age cohort.

‘Scattergun approach’

Up to 1,500 housebound older people, mostly in the east of the country, have been vaccinated by ambulance staff this week, according to Dr McCauley.

The National Ambulance Service has also been vaccinating new residents of nursing homes along with new staff where they have been employed since the immunisation campaign in this sector was completed last month.

Monaghan GP Dr Illona Duffy said she was told on Thursday an expected delivery of Moderna vaccine was being deferred, and the doses would not be supplied for several weeks.

Dr Duffy immunised her over-85 patients some weeks ago and made a start on the over-80s, and was expecting the delivery to facilitate continued vaccination of this cohort.

She criticised the “scattergun approach” around deliveries, saying there seemed to be a lack of forward planning. GPs were fielding large numbers of inquiries from patients and their families about vaccine delivery, she said.

Limerick GP Dr Nicola Stapleton described being "utterly deflated" on Thursday after a delivery was deferred for three weeks.

However, she was told yesterday she would receive supplies on Monday, though she does not know the quantity.

Up to now, GPs have been administering only the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to older patients, so have not been affected by supply issues around the AstraZeneca vaccine.