HSE boss defends 'pause' of AstraZeneca vaccine use as target falls short
Of O'sullivan Vaccine A Marc The Batch Astrazeneca Picture: File
The director-general of the HSE, Paul Reid, has defended the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) decision to ‘pause’ use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, saying that Ireland has a very good reputation for delivering vaccine programmes.
The NIAC decision protected that reputation for safety and he told RTÉ radio’s that he hoped this would be a short pause.
Mr Reid also admitted that the number of people in the new cohort 4 group who were vaccinated last week was between 4,000 and 5,000. Significant numbers had been planned for Sunday, but they had been deferred because of the pause. The target for last week had been 10,000.
“We’re progressing quite well.”
Some of the vaccinations in that cohort had been in hospitals and in community settings. The programme would resume once the EMA completed its assessment, he said.
Ireland’s Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) would be working with the EMA on the assessment which would further enhance Ireland’s reputation for progressing cautiously, he said.
The 30,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that were due to be administered this week were 20,000 in cohort 4 and 10,000 healthcare workers. To date, 200,000 health care workers have received their first dose and 90,000 have received their second dose, Mr Reid said.
The Minister for Health told the same programme he hoped those who were due to receive the vaccine will have their jab appointment rescheduled "quickly".
Stephen Donnelly said: “Hopefully the 30,000 for this week will be rescheduled very, very quickly.
“So will everybody be done within the time left in March? I’d say pretty close, possibly, maybe there may be a bit of spill-over into into April, but very, very quickly.
“We should be able to reschedule then and in so doing not have to delay other people. So in other words, do the 30,000 at the same time as people who we were planning on doing in the coming weeks as well.”
Mr Reid said the positive signs were “really strong” about the success of the vaccine programme among healthcare workers, as the numbers of positive cases in that group had been reduced from 16% to 3% and the numbers returning to work were “very good,” he added.
“There are really positive benefits.”
Mr Reid said he acknowledged the disappointment of those who were due to receive their AstraZeneca vaccine this week and he hoped a decision would be reached by the EMA this week, which would offer reassurance.
The benefits of the vaccine programme were “quite impressive” Mr Reid said and significant benefits were being seen across all groups.
The difficulties being experienced with deliveries of vaccines will be resolved and Mr Reid anticipated that Quarter 2 will see supplies being “stepped up”. Ireland was vaccinating at 90% efficiency, which was among the highest in Europe.