Covid vaccine providers have to wait two weeks for supplies

GPs and pharmacists are waiting two weeks for deliveries of Covid-19 vaccines, with health workers unable to keep up with demand for jabs.

GPs and pharmacists are waiting two weeks for deliveries of Covid-19 vaccines, with the federal government under pressure to ditch its high-cost delivery contracts with Linfox and DHL.

The delay is holding up the vaccine rollout, with health workers unable to keep up with demand for the jabs because they take so long to arrive.

A Department of Health spokesman said Community Service Obligation (CSO) wholesalers were able to bid for the competitive contract, but DHL Supply and Linfox were the only applicants to the Department of Health’s distribution contracting process that met the requirements for the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines is a highly complex logistical operation and requires careful storage and handling of temperature-sensitive vaccines which not all distribution companies are able to meet,” the spokesman said.

“DHL and Linfox deliver vaccine shipments within a delivery window that is made clear to the vaccination provider and there is the capacity for priority and urgent deliveries to be made where necessary. DHL and Linfox are able to turn around orders within 24-48 hours where there is an urgent need,” the spokesman said.

The president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia Trent Twomey wants the government to revert to using the trusted CSO delivery system through which pharmacy supplies are delivered within 24 hours to chemists all over the country.

Pharmaceutical wholesalers “currently deliver almost 6,000 medicines to more than 5,500 pharmacies – generally within 24 hours. Why set up a separate system and have to learn on the job when logistics experts already exist,” Mr Twomey said.

“The taxpayers fund, to the tune of a billion dollars over five years, the CSO … for whatever reason, that supply chain was not chosen to be the distribution mechanism for the national rollout,” he said..

Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Karen Price said delayed deliveries were “certainly a challenge that we dealt with in general practice months ago”.

“What we’re now seeing in general practice is that once you’re in that system of the fortnightly deliveries that deliveries are coming when they’re expected and you order your two week supply and then they come again in a fortnight,” Dr Price said.

Despite the fact doctors who need top up supplies have to wait five days for them to arrive Dr Price said she is not in favour of changing the system especially in the middle of a pandemic.

She said the bigger problem is there is still not enough supply of Pfizer to meet demand.

Pharmacy wholesalers did apply to transport and deliver the Covid vaccines but the government opted instead to give the job to major freight companies DHL and Linfox.

“CSO wholesalers have unrivalled infrastructure when it comes to supplying community pharmacists and typically will replenish flu vaccines within 24 hours, which is what pharmacists require given their limited cold storage facilities,”the National Pharmaceutical Services Association (NPSA) which represents all CSO wholesalers -API, National Pharmacies, Sigma Healthcare and Symbion spokesman Richard Vincent said.

“Should the government deem it useful to involve us we stand ready, willing and able to help with the speedy distribution of COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.

Meanwhile, we have learned Linfox has had to subcontract the work of delivering smaller amounts of vaccines to GPs and chemists to Australia Post’s StarTrack because its own trucks are too big for the job.

Neither company responded when asked for a comment. DHL also failed to respond to our queries.

The federal budget in May revealed taxpayers are spending $238.8 million on distribution logistics and storage of the vaccines.

Vials of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines inside a mobile freezer. Picture: Getty Images

Since April it has been possible for the Pfizer jab to be stored and transported at domestic freezer temperatures (-25°C to -15°C) for up to two weeks instead of at -70, making it easier for traditional suppliers to get involved.

“Scott Morrison needs to explain why pharmacies are having to wait two weeks to get their allocated doses,” Opposition Health Spokesman Mark Butler said.

“Scott Morrison said the rollout wasn’t a race and now every delay is just another day where Australians are waiting to be vaccinated against this highly infectious Delta variant,” he said.