All eyes are on the Prime Minister to schedule the rollout – or flyout – to the more remote corners of NZ and the Pacific
There is growing anticipation about the announcement of the Covid vaccine rollout to New Zealand's general population and the Pacific realm countries. The schedule is close to being finalised, bolstered by good news about storing and transporting the vaccine.
The only vaccine New Zealand has yet received is the Pfizer/BioNTech one, whose two-shot regime is perhaps the most difficult to distribute and administer – but is proving the most effective against the new, more transmissible variant.
A published study assessing Israel’s vaccination rollout showed two doses of the Pfizer vaccine reduced symptomatic cases by 94 percent, hospital admissions by 87 percent, and severe Covid-19 by 92 percent. The paper also suggested that the vaccine was effective against the B.1.1.7 variant.
Now, new stability data has prompted the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to review its storage guidance for the Pfizer vaccine, the UK's Pharmaceutical Journal reveals.
The company has presented evidence showing that rather than transporting and storing it in super-cold freezers at -70C, it can be kept for up to two weeks at conventional temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers.
That helps address concerns that the drug would be difficult to roll out to remote parts of New Zealand and the Pacific. And in New Zealand realm countries like Cook Islands, where there have been no documented Covid cases, they're ready and waiting.
Ewan Smith is chief executive of Air Rarotonga, which flies from Rarotonga to WW2-era coral landing strips on the country's most remote atolls, 1400km to the north. Medical evacuations to Rarotonga and Auckland are already a critical part of what the airline does. Its Embraer Bandeirante turboprops and Saab and Citation II jets are fitted with life support equipment – and they could be adapted to carry the chilled vaccines.
He welcomed the relaxed Pfizer storage agreements. "We are certainly ready with aircraft to play our part in the pa enua (outer islands) deployment," he told me this morning, speaking from Rarotonga. "There are a number of people working on the vaccination strategy here and we have been providing input into that with regard to outer island transport logistics – which are not hard."
The airline had planes and crew on standby, he said. "The small centralised populations of the outer islands make the logistics relatively straight-forward."
"The immediate benefits of knowing that their residents are protected when a two-way travel ‘bubble’ begins is immeasurable. It will enable an early return to the vibrant communities that we know and allow whānau to reconnect."
– Dr Collin Tukuitonga, University of Auckland
Dr Collin Tukuitonga from the University of Auckland is the leading expert on public health in the Pacific. He argues on Newsroom, that vaccinating the people of Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau, who are New Zealand citizens, is a good investment.
"Their economies have been devastated by the border closures needed to keep Covid-19 out of their island nations," he writes. "The immediate benefits of knowing that their residents are protected when a two-way travel ‘bubble’ begins is immeasurable. It will enable an early return to the vibrant communities that we know and allow whānau to reconnect."
Now, all eyes are on the New Zealand Prime Minister to confirm the rollout – or flyout.
