Covid 19 Coronavirus: When Kiwis Gain Access to the Vaccine

Every New Zealander will be able to receive a Covid-19 vaccination with 15 million doses now secured and the rollout will begin in the second half of next year.

The government is also working “very closely” with Australia to secure the rollout across the Pacific, Ardern said.

The government has revealed that it has secured two additional vaccines.

The new vaccines are AstraZeneca – 7.6 million doses for 3.8 million people – and Novavax – 10.72 million doses, enough for 5.36 million people.

If the rollout goes according to plan, there will be enough for every kiwi and to supply New Zealand’s Pacific neighbors with the government’s plans to obtain vaccines for the New Zealand Empire – Tokelau, Niue, Cook Islands.

It will also attract enough resources to cover Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu should their governments want to include them.

The vaccines are free for all Kiwis.

The vaccines include three different types of technology through agreements with four manufacturers:

– 750,000 Pfizer / BioNTech courses;
– 5 million Janssen courses;
– 3.8 million courses from the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca; and
– 5.36 million Novavax courses

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiled the government’s vaccine strategy alongside Ministers of Health, Covid-19 Response and Science and Research on the University of Auckland medical research campus.

The first priority is frontier and key workers who are expected to receive the vaccine in the second quarter of 2021.

Those workers include the Border and MIQ workers, the Covid-19 primary care health workers, and their family contacts.

The plan is then to vaccinate the rest of the general public in the second half of next year, depending on the speed of manufacture and approval by Medsafe, which is developing an accelerated approval process.

“We are moving as soon as we can, but we also want to make sure the vaccine is safe for New Zealanders,” Ardern said.

Researchers were investigating how long the antibodies lasted, and they expected more information to be available next year about ongoing vaccination programs.

“Never before has the entire world attempted to vaccinate the entire population at the same time. This will be a sustained rollout over months rather than weeks, but thanks to our pre-purchase agreements, New Zealand is well positioned to get started once proven safe to do this. “

Ardern said most countries were taking into account the 2021 and part of 2022 rollout due to its scale, complexity, and production and delivery timescales.

Ardern said the countries granting emergency vaccine approvals are the ones dealing with public health emergencies and rising death tolls and New Zealand was not in that position.

“We are clearly in a very different situation here.”

Ardern said that “much is unknown” about vaccines and that a lot of work had been put into reserve supplies and that any extras could be resold or donated to other countries.

Pfizer, as the rank’s first taxi, was in demand, but no country had enough to cover the entire population, Ardern said.

Ardern said the government had not been specific with the timing as it depended on the drug manufacturers’ timetables.

The government expected that some vaccines would not be delivered, which is why it had bought so many doses and options.

Secretary of Research, Science and Innovation Megan Woods said the government’s vaccination strategy was not to put all of its eggs in one basket, as there were no guarantees that they would all complete clinical trials or be successfully rolled out.

“Our plan is to make sure that nobody misses out, even if it means we bought more than we need. It’s a worthwhile investment,” said Woods.

“The world of vaccine development is dynamic. While we are confident that our four agreements place us in an excellent position, we are not ruling out other acquisitions if desired.”

Woods said the four vaccinations obtained by the government were complementary to each other.

“Our purchasing strategy was deliberate,” said Woods.

The government called on a panel of vaccine experts to outline the strategy.

The rollout

Secretary of Response Covid-19 Chris Hipkins said preparations were underway to prepare New Zealand’s largest ever immunization program.

There are about 12,000 health workers who can administer vaccines, and the government plans to train more.

Hipkins said the vaccination program would require “a huge logistical effort” – including the Pfizer vaccine to be stored at -70C.

The government wanted to focus on creating a diverse workforce to administer the vaccine, Hipkins said.

How many more people need to be recruited for the staff depends on logistics.

The new National Immunization Solution (NIS) developed this year after the measles outbreak will be used by the Department of Health to maintain inventory with information on where doses are located and at what temperature they are stored.

This year, concerns were raised in the run-up to the flu vaccine rollout, with some GPs running out quickly while vaccines were unused on pharmacy shelves.

Hipkins said the NOS would allow health officials to locate and track Covid-19 vaccines and consumables, including their expiration dates, which would reduce waste.

Also, the Department of Health has purchased nine large -80C freezers capable of storing more than 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which will arrive by the end of the year.

Health Minister Andrew Little said the goal of vaccinating primary health workers was to further strengthen the border and “create a layer of protection across the country.”

The vaccination of this group will start in the second quarter of 2021, followed by the general population – step by step – from the third quarter.

“We consider many complex and interconnected individual parts in our planning, including the safety approval process, global supply chains, and lead times for the production and shipment of high-volume vaccines,” said Little.

It was “absolutely essential,” Little said, that there was good coverage of the vaccines in the community.

The government would contact Kaupapa Maori providers to ensure that communities that normally experience poor access to health care are included in the vaccination program.

The vaccines will be voluntary, but Little said the government would send a “very strong message” about the vaccines.

Medsafe has agreed that pharmaceutical companies can submit ongoing applications for their Covod-19 vaccines so that they can submit their data as soon as it is completed and ready for review to speed up the process.

“Pfizer, BioNTech and Janssen have already begun submitting data, and the timing around Medsafe’s approval process depends on many factors, including the data companies provide and whether it meets internationally agreed criteria for safety and efficacy.

Medsafe has streamlined its review processes and prioritizes the evaluation of Covid-19 vaccines over other drugs in order to obtain a vaccine more quickly, but the safety of the vaccine will not be compromised. Medsafe will remain in close contact with its Australian counterpart . during.”

The Pacific Roll-out

The government has also provided details of how it plans to support New Zealand’s partners and neighbors in the Pacific.

It will use $ 75 million in Official Development Assistance to fund the rollout.
And $ 10 million from that fund will further contribute to the Covax Facility Advance Market Commitment, which supports fair access to vaccines.

Secretary of State Nanaia Mahuta said New Zealand’s approach will be to purchase enough vaccines to cover the empire of New Zealand (Tokelau, Niue, Cook Islands) and our Polynesian neighbors (Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu), should their governments want to include them.

Confirmed that $ 75 million in official development assistance had been earmarked to support vaccine access and deployment in the Pacific and world.

“New Zealand is committed to a portfolio of potential Covid-19 vaccines to ensure we have flexibility and choice in the rapidly changing global market. We want to ensure that Pacific countries also have access to appropriate options and support get what they need to be successful. immunization campaigns. “