Guild calls for a halt on vaccine donations with Australia in COVID crisis.

Plans to gift 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to nations around the Pacific should be put on hold while Australia grapples with its own “humanitarian crisis”, Pharmacy Guild of Australia National President, Trent Twomey, believes. 

During an eight-minute-long media call this afternoon, Twomey hit out at the Federal Government’s “bungled” vaccination campaign, and called for Department of Health Secretary, Professor Brendan Murphy, to “take responsibility” for Australia’s “deadset last” ranking in the OECD for the number of people who have been vaccinated. 

He said pharmacists were “exhausted and frustrated” at not being able to meet the needs of Australians who want to be vaccinated, adding that he had “lost patience and had had enough” of the Commonwealth’s approach to the rollout. 

“I was really annoyed this morning to wake up and hear that the Commonwealth Government is considering sending 20 million AstraZeneca vaccines to the Pacific Islands,” he said. 

“It’s not good enough [when] over half the Australian population is now entering a lockdown.

“Our message today is that don’t you dare send tens of millions of vaccinations to overseas countries as part of a humanitarian crisis when we have a humanitarian crisis here at home.”

Twomey said that while the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended that the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine be offered to patients under 60 years, people of all ages should be allowed to make informed decisions about taking the AstraZeneca shot. 

See tomorrow’s edition of Pharmacy Daily for more.  

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