People over 50 will be able to get a Covid-19 vaccine from their local pharmacist from today.
More than 1,000 pharmacies across the country are joining the vaccination programme.
They’ll initially only administer the one-shot Johnson and Johnson, however the Pfizer jab will be made available in the coming weeks.
It comes as people in their thirties are expected to be able to register for a vaccine this week.
Pharmacist Kathy Maher says “Pharmacists have wanted to be involved since their programme began and we’re delighted that finally that this stage vaccines are coming into communities around Ireland”.
There are local pharmacies offering the service, ten in each county – full list can be found here – among them are the Boots outlets on Kilkenny City’s High Street and at MacDonagh Junction Shopping Centre.
Susan O ’Dwyer is Pharmacy Strategy and Development Manager at Boots Ireland and she says “From tomorrow you’ll be able to go onto Boots.ie and book an appointment, complete a little form and then you go into the pharmacy, the pharmacist will ask you some questions, make sure the vaccination is suitable for you”
She adds “We’ve done a number of things in terms of keeping our services open, offering PCR testing services for Covid-19 and we’ve been working with the HSE for a number of months actually to get this up and running, so we’re delighted to be able to start and to be able to offer this service to people who maybe haven’t been vaccinated so anyone over the age of 50 we’ll be able to offer the Janssen vaccine which is the single-dose vaccine, so they can just come into their local pharmacy and we’ll vaccinate them”.
