Milestone reached at AIT as 50,000 vaccines administered

PHOTO: staff at AIT vaccination centre celebrate administering 50,000 vaccines last Friday.

The Covid-19 vaccination centre at Athlone IT has administered 50,000 vaccines, three months on from when it first became operational.

The 50,000th vaccine was administered on Friday 9 July, and the Site Manager at the centre, Susan Temple, said that all staff were “chuffed” to have reached the milestone.

“We have great support from the Defence Forces who support the pharmacy aspect of the centre so we’ve been able to move to pre-filled syringes in Athlone,” she said.

“There’s security and cleaning staff as well as the vaccinators, the pharmacy staff, admin and registration staff. We’ve also had support from AIT, so it’s one big team effort to get 50,000 people vaccinated and it’s one of those things where it could only have been reached working together.

“We get the maximum amount of vaccines per vial with the processes in place, so it has all worked very well.”

First vaccines were administered on 1 April when a small number of clinics were ran to vaccinate people with disabilities and who require mental health services, as well as high-risk patients from hospitals.

Following that, the centre at the International Arena started vaccinating those aged 65-69 on 21 April.

“We would have been using Astrazeneca initially, and we’ve completed nearly all of those because the timeline between doses has been brought back from eight weeks to four weeks,” Susan said.

“Everybody that has received their first has been invited back for their second. There’s a handful of people who for whatever reason haven’t been able to come back to us, but I would say we’ve closed out the older age groups with both vaccinations.”

For the last number of weeks, the centre has been administering mRNA Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and the centre has not received Janssen vaccines at all.

“We’ve vaccinated down as far as the 30–34-year-olds, and the portal will open for 25-29-year-olds from 16 July so we’ll be moving on to that age group then as soon as we can.”

Overall, Susan says that feedback has been very positive and people are delighted to come in and get their vaccines.

“The arena is a big spacious area, so it’s probably bigger than some of the other vaccination centres.

“Every week we get a schedule where we are expected to give a different number of doses whether they be the first or the second, and we’ve been able to reach all those milestones which led us to the 50,000 vaccines.

“It has always been a balancing act between supply and the correct number of people registering on the portal but there haven’t been major issues.”

Susan says that it is difficult to predict how much longer the centre will be running.

“There are different groups getting vaccinated in different places now with both GPs and pharmacies involved, so we don’t know how many people are yet to be vaccinated.

“We also cover a large area. If the 50,000 vaccines were administered in Athlone alone, we would have the whole town finished by now, but we have people coming from Portumna and Mountbellew for example. We have a much bigger catchment area than Athlone itself.

“What I can say is that as soon as people are registered on the portal, we normally schedule them for their appointment within a week whenever possible and we do our best to facilitate people as best as we can with appointment changes.”

Registration for a Covid-19 vaccine is now open for those aged 25-69, and those seeking to register can do so on vaccine.hse.ie