Australia’s national vaccination program is set to begin next week, targeting tens of thousands of aged care residents and staff who are expected to receive their first vaccine dose against COVID-19.
The program will begin in every State and Territory and will include regional and rural aged care facilities.
It is expected the roll out to aged care facilities will take approximately six weeks.
Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, said the vaccine implementation plan for residential aged care aimed to administer vaccines to more than 240 aged care facilities in the first week.
“Vaccination for residents and staff will be made available through residential aged care facilities where they live or work, and it will be administered through an in-reach workforce provider,” Mr Hunt said.
“Healthcare Australia will be providing the vaccination workforce in NSW and Queensland, and Aspen Medical will be responsible for the other States and Territories.”
He said the Primary Health Network in each region would be supporting the Commonwealth deliver the vaccination to each of the aged care facilities in their area with the process expected to draw from the experience of delivering influenza vaccines to aged care residents.
“It’s anticipated that people aged over 70 years who do not reside in residential aged care facilities, along with in-home and community aged care staff, will be able to go to specified central locations or medical facilities to receive their COVID 19 vaccination, as the time comes for their vaccination,” the Minister said.
He said that in the coming weeks the vaccination program would reach more than 2,600 residential aged care facilities, more than 183,000 residents and 339,000 staff.
