Quote Originally Posted by lisvaneblue View Post
I don’t think this should be generally rolled out. Community pharmacists have been well involved in the annual flu vaccination campaigns for years and do a great job. The flu jab is relatively straightforward as it comes as a ready prepared pre- loaded syringe. The Oxford jab which is the one that can be kept in a fridge comes as a 10 dose multi use vial. The pharmacist has to draw up doses from the vial using aseptic technique and once a dose has been used from the vial the other nine doses must be used within 6 hours and anything not used in this time must be binned.

I’m not sure busy high street pharmacies are the place for this type of vaccine.
According to their spokesman, community pharmacists are supposedly all keen to be part of the vaccination programme. If all 11,000 pharmacies did take part a tremendous number of people could be vaccinated quickly. However, speaking as a retired industrial pharmacist who spent some time in retail, I don't know how they would find the time! As for the worry about aseptic technique, I hardly think there is much difference in working conditions between the consulting room in a pharmacy and a leisure centre. Pharmacists should be well aware of aseptic procedures?

Of greater concern to me is the availability of components like vials and stoppers. There are not that many manufacturers of pharmaceutical quality glass vials or stoppers, so the availability of these could well turn out to be the rate limiting step.