Covid-19 kids vaccine rollout: Doctors call for urgent change as they face supply issues

The children’s national vaccine rollout is already facing major problems, and doctors have had enough. They now have a solution but need more help.

Doctors are calling for urgent changes to the children’s national vaccine rollout, with many GPs unable to obtain adequate supplies.

The shortages and high demand have caused chaos, despite reassurances from federal and state health authorities that enough doses are available, The Australian reports.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Karen Price told The Australian there needed to be “a recalibration” as some GPs are getting only 50 or 100 doses delivered a week.

Doctors believe too many doses have been given to state-run hubs when most parents prefer to have their children vaccinated by their own GP.

Parents and children line up at a West Melbourne vaccination clinic. Picture: David Caird

Covid-19 vaccine taskforce Commander Lieutenant General John Frewen said 800,000 paediatric doses were in the system at chemists, GPs and state-run hubs.

The supply was “absolutely more than enough” doses to get every five to 11-year-old vaccinated with their first dose before they went back to school, he said.

The queue outside the Brisbane Convention Centre as children aged between five and 11 became eligible to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Dr Price said local areas should co-operate in sharing doses.

“Whilst from the top down there appears to be enough doses, from the bottom up there needs to be some recalibration about the way it’s distributed, and it would be ideal if local areas could co-­operate in terms of sharing doses for where the demand is,” Dr Price told The Australian.

There is also the time factor to consider — vaccinating a five- or six-year old child takes on average at least double the time it needs to vaccinate an adult.

“We don’t want to traumatise children, so we do have to take time,” Dr Price said.

A Covid-19 vaccine is prepared at Sydney Road Family Medical Practice in Sydney’s Balgowlah. Picture: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Australian Medical Association president Omar Khorshid said “something needs to change”. “We’ve been predicting for months that GPs would bear the brunt of the kids’ vaccination program because a lot of young children are quite hesitant around vaccines (and) parents want them to occur in the trusted environment of the general practice rather than in a big mass vaccination centre. So we would certainly support GPs getting more vaccine rather than the state hubs,” he told The Australian.

“The experience GPs are reporting to us is that they’re really struggling to get them in any timely manner, which means we may be nowhere near two million kids vaccinated by the time they go back to school.”

Originally published as Covid-19 kids vaccine rollout: Doctors call for urgent change as they face supply issues