Ireland offers Covid vaccine booster jabs to all aged 16 and over
- Published
Younger patients will face a longer wait but everyone aged 16 and over is now eligible for a booster jab
All residents aged 16 and over in the Republic of Ireland are to be offered a Covid-19 booster vaccine dose following recommendations from health experts.
It is a significant widening of the Irish booster programme currently being rolled out to people aged 60 and over, health staff and vulnerable patients.
Boosters for people aged 50 and above were already approved and were due to begin at the end of December.
However, that plan is being accelerated and will now begin in mid-December.
Patients in groups who are most at risk from the virus are being given priority, while other members of the public will be called in descending age order when they become eligible.
Pregnant women prioritised
The latest recommendations to widen the booster programme to everyone aged 16 and above was made by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC).
NIAC is an independent expert group that says it provides "evidence-based advice" to the Irish Department of Health to inform its policies.
Its recommendations were endorsed by Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan and have also been accepted by the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly.
"I welcome NIAC's continuous review of all international evidence relating to booster doses," Mr Donnelly said.
"I am accepting and authorising these latest recommendations on the basis that a significant amount of planning will be required to operationalise these booster doses."
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly warned there were "high rates of infection in the community"
The Department of Health set out the order in which healthy people aged between 16 and 49 would be offered a booster jab.
Pregnant women will be first on the list in newly-approved age category.
They will be followed by people aged between 40 and 49.
The next category will be people aged 30 to 39, followed by the 20 to 29 age group and then teenagers aged from 16 to 19.
Booster jabs must be administered at certain intervals, depending on the brand of the initial vaccination dose or doses.
A gap of at least five months is recommended in all cases, except for those who received a Janssen jab as their primary vaccine, as they can get a booster after a three-month interval.
The minister pointed out that "no-one in these newly-approved age cohorts has yet reached the recommended gap since the second dose".
Mr Donnelly also appealed to anyone who had yet to come forward for a first dose to "do so as a matter of urgency given the continuing high rates of infection in the community".
"We continue to see a high proportion of unvaccinated individuals requiring hospitalisation and critical care in ICU," he said.
Earlier this week, the chief medical officer warned of pressure on Ireland's health services because of rising infections.
Dr Holohan said a number of hospitals were "already curtailing the delivery of scheduled care in order to cope with rising numbers of Covid patients".
Earlier this month, the Irish government reintroduced some Covid-19 restrictions due to "another surge" of the virus.
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