Deep chill to rule out Covid vaccine jabs at most GP clinics

Most GP clinics will be not be able to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to the Australian Medical Association.

A nurse holds a container of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine after it was used to vaccinate hospital staff in Chicago, Illinois. Picture: Getty Images

Most GP clinics will be not be able to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that is due to be ­approved in Australia in late January, according to the Australian Medical Association.

Only very large GP clinics will be able to gather enough patients to administer the jabs due to the way they are packaged and stored in ultra-low-temperature shipping boxes.

The Pfizer vaccine will be transported to Australia in “dry shippers” that contain about 975 vaccine doses packed in dry ice. Hospitals will be able to store the vaccine, which needs to be refrigerated to least minus 70C, in ultra-cold freezers, but GP clinics generally do not have such equipment.

If special freezers are not available, the vaccines can be stored in the dry shippers for up to 15 days. Once they are taken out of the box, they need to be moved into an ultra-low-temperature freezer within 90 seconds and can only be stored for up to five days at ordinary fridge temperature.

The boxes cannot be opened and shut again for storage due to the immediate temperature drop, meaning all 975 doses would have to be administered in any given ­location within the space of five days. The AMA has been in early discussions with the federal government about the Pfizer vaccine rollout.

“It’s just not going to be feasible to roll out the Pfizer vaccine in small general practice from what we understand at this stage ­because of the cold storage ­requirements and the size of the batches,” said AMA president Omar Korshid. “Every time you open the dry-ice box the temperature starts to drop straight away the moment it’s opened.

“We do see a role for GPs but it will need to be GPs that work in places that are just physically large enough to deal with the size.”

The Therapeutic Goods ­Administration has indicated it will approve the Pfizer vaccine — which has already been granted emergency authorisation in the US and the UK — in late January.

Australia has ordered 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine — enough to immunise five million people with two jabs.

Australia also has deals to purchase 53.8 million doses of a vaccine being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and 51 million doses of a candidate from Novavax.

According to the federal government, almost four million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are due to be delivered to Australia in early 2021. A further 50 million doses will be manufactured onshore by CSL.

The government has said the first jabs of the AstraZeneca vaccine are expected to occur in March. That seems an ambitious timeline given that the US phase 3 trial of the vaccine is not due to ­deliver results until February.

The Pfizer vaccine will be ­administered in March first to the elderly and vulnerable and some healthcare workers, likely most at hospitals and respiratory clinics.

“We’ve been told by the government to expect the vaccine to be administered at large general practices, respiratory clinics, places like that where they can get, ­logistically, enough patients to come all at the same time, in a bit of a, almost a conveyor belt type ­operation, to get everybody through their vaccines before those vaccines warm up and become unusable,” Dr Korshid said.

“And then similarly get them back again, 21 days later to do all that again. That’s quite a big exercise, it’s never really been done ­before.”

The fact that so many people have to be vaccinated in such a short period of time raises questions as to whether the Pfizer vaccine will be viable to administer at all in remote locations.