COVID-19 Vaccine

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:09): Supplementary question: has the minister worked out a plan as to who will be administering the vaccine, and will he consider getting local pharmacists to administer some of the vaccines as well?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:09): The honourable member didn't need to declare an interest. His association with pharmacy is well known. I understand the Vietnamese community are strong in the pharmacy profession. Certainly, the honourable member is correct: in the development of any vaccine program you need to consider all of the distribution opportunities, and pharmacists have certainly been playing an increasing role in terms of vaccinations. In terms particularly of the COVID vaccine, I think it is too early to tell.

Again I preface my remarks by saying, I am a politician, not a clinician, but my understanding—and I suspect the Hon. Frank Pangallo may have more information on this than I have—is that some of the vaccines that are under development have particularly high standards in terms of storage and distribution, so, if you like, it may not be within the infrastructure of a pharmacist to deliver the cold chain requirements of a COVID-19 vaccine.

But again, the complexities are such that in my understanding we are not necessarily going to use one vaccine. It may well be that some vaccines have storage and distribution requirements that are within the scope of the pharmacy network and that brand might be deployed for a certain cohort through pharmacists, but I am wandering into the hypotheticals, so I must desist.