Push to donate vaccines, expand eligibility as shots expire & More News Here – Upjobsnews

The advisory group this month also declined to recommend first boosters for children aged 12 to 15, as they received adequate protection against severe illness from their primary vaccinations.

Meanwhile, the Royal Australian College of GPs has urged the federal government to donate more vaccines, particularly to the COVAX vaccine program, which endeavours to provide COVID-19 vaccines to 92 of the world’s poorest nations, as it reported that doctors were throwing out expired doses in their fridges.

“If there are unused doses that would otherwise go to waste, we should do everything possible to donate excess doses overseas,” college president Dr Karen Price said.

“These vaccines will save lives, and if we want to stop new variants and sub-variants emerging, which may be more transmissible or deadly, we can’t just vaccinate people in wealthy countries and hope the virus will go away.”

Australia has donated more than 25 million doses to countries in South-East Asia.

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Vaccine uptake has stalled in recent weeks. About two-thirds of people aged 16 and over have received a booster dose and just under half of children aged five to 11 have received their first shot.

Twomey said some level of wastage of the vaccines, which are packaged in vials of six or 10 shots, was to be expected, but he agreed that the number being thrown away was too high.

At her Leichhardt pharmacy, Christine Kelly threw out “hundreds” of vials in February after her paediatric Pfizer vaccine order was doubled when she complained that she had not initially received enough.

While pharmacists were sharing supplies, she expected to throw out significant numbers of expired Novavax shots at the end of April.

Cabramatta pharmacist Quinn On agreed that there had been “unfortunately, a lot of wastage” due to the multi-dose vials, although allowing walk-in appointments – rather than ordering only for pre-booked patients – meant ultimately more people received shots.

At his Fairfield and Campbelltown vaccination clinics, GP Dong Hua mostly throws out vials of the Novavax and children’s Pfizer vaccines.

“We’re not ordering a huge amount and the fourth doses are helping use up the regular Pfizer we have,” he said.

But while the doses need a home, Australian doctors who have worked in administering vaccines in Papua New Guinea said vaccines alone were not the solution to low rates of uptake in the Pacific.

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Dr Mikaela Seymour, who recently completed two years’ work at the Western Provincial Health Authority, said misinformation was an issue, with more concern about the vaccine than the virus.

“Because COVID has a long incubation period and it doesn’t hit people all at once, it’s hard for communities to see the impact,” she said.

Anti-vaccination videos of United States or African origin created by evangelical Christians made it to the country’s deeply religious communities before doctors did.

“It takes time to build relationships and build trust,” said Dr John Oakley, who was also involved in the country’s vaccination effort.

He said the Johnson and Johnson one-shot vaccine was most useful, noting that many donated vaccines had expired.

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