HSE received just 9,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine last week – the lowest delivery to date

The HSE just received 9,600 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine last week, the lowest delivery to date.

It coincided with the temporary pause on the roll out of the vaccine while the European Medicines Agency investigated reports of blood clots in a number of people abroad who got the jab.

So far since it was approved for use here 216,000 doses of this vaccine have been administered. This compared to 570,960 doses the Pfizer vaccine and 68,400 of the Moderna jab.

Overall, some 855,360 doses of the vaccine have been delivered here since December. As of Sunday 680,015 doses of vaccine have been delivered .

The Department of Health said Moderna requested that 50pc of its vaccine is held back for second doses.

"Similarly, an appropriate buffer amount is built up and held back for all vaccines to ensure availability of second doses for the following week.

"Currently, about 95pc of available vaccines are administered within seven days of arrival in Ireland."

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said it is expected that around 1 million vaccine will arrive here next month.

Around 10,000 vaccinators have been trained to administer the vaccines, he said.

From tomorrow the HSE will stop taking new applications from frontline healthcare staff as they have all been covered at this point.

It will mean that there will be more AstraZeneca vaccine to administer to people with underlying conditions leaving them at very high risk if they catch Covid-19.

In a letter to hospital groups the HSE's chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry said:

"I am writing in relation to the vaccination programme for frontline healthcare workers (Cohort2). In accordance with the government’s provisional allocation grouping, vaccination of this high risk group began in late December

"As of March 21 over 204,000 frontline healthcare workers had received their first dose vaccination. We have now significantly exceeded the original estimation of this group by more than 50,000 and are now in a position to begin to close out dose 1 vaccinations for this group

"On midday Friday March 26 the healthcare worker portal will close for new registrations. Anyone registered on the healthcare worker portal prior to midday Friday will be offered a vaccine as part of this group. Specific arrangements for new employees and staff returning from sick leave who have not been vaccinated and meet the criteria for frontline healthcare workers will be required.

"For healthcare workers not in direct patient contact (group 6b) the HCW portal will re-open in due course. I would like to take this opportunity to once again recognise and thank you for the tremendous effort that has and continues to be made across Community and Acute operations to enable the safe, effective and timely roll out of the vaccination programme."

Online Editors