As New Zealand is not battling huge community outbreaks of the disease, health officials here are likely to be under less pressure to rush to vaccinate than their counterparts in those countries where the disease is running rampant.
That does not mean the vaccination strategists here have been idle and nor will they be in the coming months.
The Government has been dealing with several vaccine producers and has announced two — the two-dose Pfizer (the one being used in the UK) and the one-dose Janssen.
Although no approval has yet been granted by Medsafe for either vaccine, it is expected that if that is successfully fast-tracked, the two-dose Pfizer vaccine could be in New Zealand by March.
This vaccine presents some logistical difficulties as it requires -70degC storage. The Government has bought nine large freezers for this and 40 smaller ones. Once thawed and out of the super cold storage, the vaccine can be kept in a normal fridge for up to five days.
Efficient distribution to reduce the risk of vaccine spoilage will be just one of the headaches for vaccination programme planners.
Finding the workforce to carry out a mass vaccination programme in our stretched health system may prove challenging.
Hitting the right note in its communication campaign will be essential in an atmosphere where many, while not being anti-vaccination, may have some reluctance about participating in a programme where there is no long-term data about any of the new vaccines' safety and efficacy.
On the communication front, it would be refreshing if the inevitable glitches which occur on anything as large scale as this could be readily acknowledged and dealt with openly. This year we have had too many instances where problems encountered on the front-line by health workers have been initially downplayed or denied.
We hope there will be wide consultation among relevant sections of the health sector and the community over what is proposed so any oversights or impractical ideas can be dealt with before the programme plan is finalised.
While the country waits for Covid-19 vaccines, the Ministry of Health could be using the campaign to catch up the estimated 300,000 15 to 30-year-olds who have missed Measles Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccinations to test its ability to engage with a hard-to-reach cohort.
Instead, the campaign, first announced in February and then re-announced in July, has had a stuttering start, with RNZ reporting recently only about 4000 had been vaccinated so far. Southern District Health Board has been given a hurry-up by the Ministry of Health because it has been slow off the mark on this.
While our borders are tightly controlled it is an ideal time to bridge the vaccinations gap for this highly contagious illness which is on the rise overseas and which, under normal circumstances, would be only a plane ride away.
Last year, 83 deaths, many of them children, in an outbreak in Samoa illustrated how devastating the disease can be. New Zealand's biggest outbreak since 1997 came last year too with 2185 notified cases, spread over 17 district health boards (including Southern). Most cases were in the Auckland region and disproportionately affected Maori and Pacific populations.
The catch-up vaccination campaign to date seems to have been so low-key and piecemeal many people may not realise there is one. It will not be an easy task finding young people who may have scant contact with healthcare services, and we look forward to the ministry ramping up its advertising.
A properly nationally co-ordinated approach to this could have provided valuable training for any future Covid-19 vaccination programme, but we fear that opportunity may have been lost.
