Unions representing healthcare workers, including Fórsa, continue to maintain their focus on ensuring that workers providing a vital function within health care are vaccinated as a priority.

Fórsa official Chris Cully said weekly engagement with the HSE on the rollout of vaccines is continuing, with the health body confirming that 27,000 healthcare workers will be one of three groups receiving vaccines next week.

It was reported this week that healthcare workers now account for less than five per cent of all Covid cases, falling by at least 80% since vaccinating healthcare workers commenced in late December. However, over the last two weeks 373 cases were recorded in healthcare workers, with 127 of these in a healthcare setting.

Chris said: “While the issue of vaccine supply featured prominently in media reports this week, the process of vaccinating healthcare workers continues, and we’ve seen the incident of healthcare worker infection improving in recent weeks.

“It remains the case, however, that more than 27,500 health care workers have been infected with Covid-19 during this pandemic, and there’s a need to remain aware of the risk either of infection or transmission by a non-vaccinated member of staff, and to implement rollout accordingly.

“There’s a broad spectrum within this cohort, from those working from home to, for instance, working in a non-clinical environment on a hospital campus or similar, so we’ve continued to push for the completion of the vaccination process for healthcare workers as quickly as possible,” she said.

Chris said figures provided to the unions by the HSE this week confirmed the allocation of 40,000 Astra Zenica vaccines next week, with approximately 27,000 going to healthcare workers. The remaining allocation will go to 9,000 people considered ‘high risk’ aged between 18 and 69, and around 4,000 people with a disability in residential care.

Delivery

A statement from the Department of Health this week said the vaccination strategy is to distribute all available vaccines as quickly as possible, with priority for those who are most vulnerable.

It said rollout plans “must be flexible to accommodate unforeseen events, such as changes to supplies from manufacturers” and that certain manufacturers have guided on maintaining a ‘buffer’ of vaccines in order to ensure the availability of a second dose. The statement said 95% of available vaccines are being administered within seven days of arrival in the country.

The department said a total of 613,650 vaccines have been delivered to Ireland so far, with 525,768 doses administered to residents and staff at long-term residential care facilities, to ‘frontline’ healthcare workers and to people aged over 70 years.

The Department also stated that Astra Zenica has advised that there is currently no private sector supply, sale or distribution of its vaccine, cautioning that any offers of private vaccines are likely to be counterfeit.