Health providers are developing plans to meet the challenging logistics of the first-phase COVID-19 vaccine rollout to the outermost corners of Victoria.
The Victorian Government has announced six large regional hospitals will be "hubs" responsible for distributing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to priority recipients, including frontline health workers and aged care workers.
However, hospitals in outer regional centres such as Mildura, Swan Hill, Horsham and Warrnambool were not selected as hubs and priority vaccinations in those areas will instead be administered using an outreach model.
Dr Andrew Mahony, infectious diseases physician at Bendigo Health, said providing the vaccine to healthcare workers in Mildura, 400km to the north-west, would be challenging because of the vaccine's technical storage requirements, including the need to store it at -70C.
However, there had been "a little bit of good news" in recent studies, he said.
"We had thought we only had two hours to administer the vaccine from the time it's drawn up in syringes but some of their stability data now has shown we actually have up to six hours, which means we'll actually get the vaccine up to Mildura," he said.
'Significant' training needed
How the vaccine would be administered at each site, once the products were transported, was still being worked through, he said.
"What we really need to set up is the scheduling of the vaccines for the right number of staff for the right number of vaccines that are going to be arriving on a certain date," he said.
Barwon Health Services' director of infectious diseases, Professor Eugene Athan, said his organisation had "all the expertise, capability and requirements" to coordinate a priority roll-out across south-western Victoria.
"We are recruiting new staff into the roles of immunisers … and we'll be aiming to establish some sub-hubs further in the region, places like Portland, Colac and Warrnambool," he said.
"There is significant training required for all those who will be immunising to monitor people for safety and to make sure the vaccine is managed appropriately, according to standard operating procedures."
Professor Athan was hopeful the immunisation program in Victoria's south-west could begin in the first week of March.
Mobile units to care facilities
The Pfizer hubs the Victorian Government named this week are aligned to the Local Public Health Units established late last year.
The Federal Government has developed its own implementation plan for immunising privately run aged care and disability care staff and residents.
A spokeswoman for Victoria's Department of Health said many further vaccination sites would be organised across the state, including local GP sites, as more vaccines received approval.
Professor Athan said, while aged care residents were not scheduled for vaccination until "phase 1b", the second stage of the initial rollout, "we will endeavour to provide vaccination to the aged care residents through the public sector as much as possible as part of 1a, if we can".
"Logistically, it requires an actual visit to the aged care facility with a mobile unit potentially [as] the best model, so we’re still developing that approach," he said.
Wimmera Health Care Group acting director of medical services Dr Rob Pegram said his region would obtain vaccines stored in Ballarat, with priority personnel to be immunised "in their own town".
"There is not a lot of efficiency or gain in handing a bit out here and a bit out there, so we really have to start the program and each of the hubs needs to get their systems right and then it will be distributed out to the individual towns and the individual centres."
