Pharmacies will start to offer the single-shot Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine to the over 50s from today.
Deliveries of around 60,000 vaccines are expected at around 1,300 participating pharmacies.
The Irish Pharmacy Union said Ireland’s pharmacists have been calling for clarity from government for months around when they can start to give out jabs.
Darragh O’Loughlin, chief executive of the Irish Pharmacy Union, told Newstalk Breakfast Weekends: “The Janssen, or Johnson and Johnson vaccine, with be delivered to 700 or 800 pharmacies around the country in the coming days and those will be available for anyone over the age of 50 who hasn’t already been vaccinated, whether or not they registered on the HSE portal.
“Then in a couple of weeks, a smaller number of pharmacies, mostly those that are not too close to vaccination centres, will have the Pfizer vaccine and they’ll be using that in the same way as the vaccination centres and GPs as part of the national vaccination programme.”
He added that despite research supporting crossover vaccination, people who have had their first dose of a different vaccine, like Astra Zeneca, will have to wait for a second dose as part of the vaccination programme.
Mr O’Loughlin said: “The HSE and the National Immunisation Advisory Committee are not supporting that yet.
“The national vaccination programme has an IT system that pharmacists will be using to see who has already been vaccinated and who hasn’t.”
Eligible people can book a vaccine appointment directly with a pharmacist or check a list of participating pharmacies on the Health Service Executive website.
The vaccine registration portal is expected to open to people in their 30s this week.
Mr O’Loughlin praised GPs for the rollout of vaccinations so far, but said they were overwhelmed in the pandemic.
He said the Department of Health and the HSE are “very conservative” and haven’t wanted to make changes to how things are done.
He added: “But Stephen Donnelly as Minister (for Health) has repeatedly said that he wants to see pharmacies deliver more primary care, he wants to see the HSE rolling out things like minor ailment treatment and so on through pharmacies.
“We can only hope as the pandemic recedes that the Government actually makes good on the commitments they have made and the statements the Minister had made and actually does something for people this way.”
