There could be a nine-month wait before everyone in Ireland gets vaccinated, says Dr Nuala O’Connor

There could be a nine-month wait before everyone in Ireland gets vaccinated, according to a leading doctor.

The Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is likely to be approved by European health authorities by the end of the month, with the most vulnerable receiving the vaccine in January.

Dr Nuala O’Connor from the Irish College of General Practitioners said: “Hopefully by the end of the second or third week of January we will begin offering immunization to the most vulnerable in our society.

“There will be a set of options, but not everything will happen in January, this will take us six to nine months to be able to offer vaccines to the entire eligible population.”

Dr O’Connor expects the European Medicines Agency to approve Pfizer’s jab on December 29.

“Our government has arranged advance purchase agreements for this and several other vaccines,” he told Newstalk Breakfast today.

Meanwhile, proposals for the government’s plan for launching the vaccine will be presented to Cabinet on Tuesday.

A combination of clinics, GPs, and pharmacies is expected to administer the doses.

Tuesday’s report from the high-level task force on vaccines will set out the role that public health doctors, pharmacists and nurses will play.

Dr O’Connor, GP of Cork, added that “the vaccine is just one item in the toolbox” to try to combat the spread of Covid-19.

She said: “Until 70% of the country is vaccinated, the key things that we have been telling people, particularly in the lead up to Christmas… we need people to stay home if they develop symptoms.

“It will be a long time before enough of the population has been vaccinated.

“The virus is still there, we did not lower the numbers enough.”

The EMA is expected to approve several other vaccines during the new year.

Dr O’Connor added: “We need to allow time for regulators, including global and European regulators and our own regulators, the Medical Devices Regulatory Authority, to do all their due diligence to make sure they are happy with the distribution of this shot out.

“It’s great now that we just found out that the US FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine, so this is good news.”

Independent TD Denis Naughten has said that retired health workers should be called in to help launch the vaccine.

He said: “We are already experiencing record delays within our healthcare system and the last thing we need right now is for front-line personnel to be removed from addressing the horrendous delays to implement this important vaccination program.

“The thousands of people who suffer and the children who wait years for services will not thank this government if it does not act decisively and ensure that frontline personnel focus on their responsibilities before COVID.”