Coronavirus: NI to receive 'significant' vaccine delivery this week

Northern Ireland is to receive "significant" amounts of vaccine this week that will need to be used by the end of March.

The Health and Social Care Board's head of general medical services wrote to all GP practices to inform them.

Dr Margaret O'Brien said she appreciated the "challenges of irregular volumes of vaccine supply from Public Health England to date".

Two batches of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are expected this week.

In her letter, seen by BBC News NI, she also advised that as supplies increase over the coming weeks "practices should continue to call patients in priority group order".

The two batches will have different coloured caps to indicate the expiry date - those with green caps will have a shorter expiry date - likely to be between 28 March and 2 April and, according to the board, should be used first.

Those practices that did not receive any allocation of vaccine last week are due to get boxes of 80 doses - 10 vials of 8 doses.

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The board has advised that any surplus vaccine after allocating based on those aged practices who still need to vaccinate those 80 plus will be distributed to those practices based on their population needs.

The Royal College of GP's told the BBC that it is the nature of the vaccine programme.

Speaking to BBC News NI, Dr Laurence Dorman GP said "this is the most complicated vaccine programme the UK has ever undertaken and GPs have played a significant part in this".

He said one of the big difficulties has been the supply of the vaccine which is in high demand across the world.

It has come in in small quantities but GPs have been quick and adapted to deliver these to patients.

The batches of AstraZeneca vaccine expected this week will need to be used by the end of March

He also said there was a new batch with a short shelf life but GPs were eager to get it and said it would be very useful as next week they were going to start doing second doses of vaccines.

He recognises there is frustration among patients and GPs as well, "as we can see, the supply hasn't been stable and hasn't been steady so we are doing this as quickly as possible".

For patients with underlying health conditions, Dr Dorman said: "We know who you are and will be getting to you as soon as we can, please don't contact your surgery, we have really detailed lists of our patients, it will be a little slower… but we will get to you."

Practices have been advised to prioritise their vials according to expiry date which could be different to the order that vaccines have been delivered.

According to the letter, if practices are unable to use their allocation of those "short expiry date vaccines they should not place an order on the website".

'Large deliveries'

BBC News NI has been contacted by several people who have been told by their practices that their vaccine appointment is delayed as surgeries do not have supplies of the vaccine.

In a statement, the Department of Health said: "Due to vaccine supply, some GP practices did not receive any AstraZeneca vaccine week commencing the 1st March.

"It is expected that supplies of the vaccine will increase significantly this month with large deliveries expected this week.

"This will allow the programme to accelerate further and enable progression through the priority groups.

"Some supplies will have a shorter date than others and GPs have been advised to use those vaccines first."