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Covid-19 booster could be given with flu jab in Northern Ireland

Reuters Covid-19 testingReuters
A Stormont committee heard GPs deliver 480,000 flu jabs each year without disturbing their normal practice

Public health officials are hopeful a campaign for Covid-19 booster vaccines will be combined with the regular winter flu jab programme.

A Stormont committee was told combining the two campaigns would be more effective.

The head of NI's vaccination campaign, Patricia Donnelly, said guidance would come from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

The JCVI gives vaccination guidance for the whole of the UK.

"When they give the advice on the booster, who will get it - it may not be a total population, it will be a single dose," Patricia Donnelly told the Stormont health committee.

"We hope that they will take into consideration the winter flu programme, which is delivered by GPs."

She said GPs deliver 480,000 vaccinations each year without disrupting their normal practices.

"GPs would be keen on that, and indeed we discussed it last night at a meeting," she added.

Patricia Donnelly appearing on a web cam before the Stormont health committee
Patricia Donnelly appeared before the Stormont health committee on Thursday

Committee chairman Colm Gildernew said while he had got his Covid-19 vaccination at his local GP in what he described as an "exemplary process", he believed it had been disruptive to regular general practice activities.

He asked if more vaccinators were being recruited to "take the pressure off those frontline services".

'Carry the burden'

Ms Donnelly said regular discussions were being had with GP leaders and the Health and Social Care Board and additional vaccinators were being recruited, with some directly supporting the GP side of the vaccination programme.

"For the winter campaign, I think the GPs and community pharmacists are really going to carry the burden for that," she said.

"I think their access to the VMS [vaccination management system] means we can be quite targeted in how we work with them, in targeting rural communities in some initiatives that would improve uptake.

"We await final advice from JCVI about who to vaccinate - we don't know whether it's just going to be those priority groups one to four, one to six, whether it will be the same population for the flu vaccine or whether it's a total population.

"We do expect that there will be a staff vaccination programme, because they will be particularly at risk, as well as whatever part of the population.

"We hope that advice will be coming to us soon, we expect no later than early summer."