Pharmacies await supplies of Queensland’s excess AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines

Pharmacies are gearing-up to start dispensing AstraZeneca across south-east Queensland within days with the state government making available some of its excess stock.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath on Wednesday. Picture: Dan Peled

Pharmacies are gearing up to start dispensing AstraZeneca across southeast Queensland within days, with the state government making available some of its excess stock of the vaccine.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath told The Australian the state had enough vaccine in its stockpile to supply pharmacies as it waited for 150,000 doses from the commonwealth, expected to arrive next week.

But Ms D’Ath cautioned that the extent of the rollout to pharmacies – which have begun to receive their federal government approval in southeast Queensland to deliver the jabs – would be dependent on availability of “necessary consumables such as syringes’’.

Ms D’Ath detailed the acceleration of the pharmacy rollout across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast – now in lockdown – after responding to an attack by the federal government this week that Queensland had reduced its orders of AstraZeneca in recent months.

Earlier this week, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt questioned Queensland’s vaccine rollout.

“I don‘t believe there are any orders placed for AstraZeneca by Queensland Health in July,” he said. “And I can make the offer that 150,000 AstraZeneca could be provided immediately to Queensland Health if they seek it.”

Ms D’Ath said she had asked that the vaccines be instead sent to general practitioners as Queensland Heath clinics had enough AstraZeneca for its purposes and was concentrating on delivering Pfizer jabs for priority groups.

“Our job is to deliver vaccines to priority groups, such as health workers, who are mostly under 60 years and receive the Pfizer vaccine,’’ she said.

“We have enough AstraZeneca for the demand in those clinics and had an arrangement with the commonwealth to redirect that vaccine to GPs, who are supplied by the commonwealth and were complaining they did not have enough.’’

Ms D’Ath said she was hopeful that pharmacies could be delivering the jab within days.

“We have got some AstraZeneca we can give them and are checking on the supply of things like syringes, which will take them through to next week,’’ she said.

“But I don‘t think it’s acceptable that they have to wait until next week for the commonwealth to deliver those vaccines and those consumables when they have got it in supply now, and we ask them to be delivered as soon as possible because the sooner we start getting these vaccines in people’s arms, the safer those individuals become and the safer our community becomes.”