Children aged five to 11 become eligible for vaccination from Monday, January 10.
“Hiccups’’ in the statewide booking system meant parents could not start booking children in for vaccination until some days after Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said they would be able to.
GV Health chief executive Matt Sharp said children’s vaccinations were different to adult vaccinations, and the health service was struggling with a lack of staff.
“Our challenge is really trying to get people recruited, trained — because it’s a different way of vaccinating compared to adults and we have to make sure that the staff are properly trained to be able to to administer those vaccines to that age group,” he said.
“In the following few weeks it will really start to ramp up, so our goal there is to have as many children vaccinated across our area before school goes back — at least get one dose into them and then hopefully get them back for the second dose.”
He said vaccine supply was “really strong” but GV Health would be unlikely to pump out as many vaccinations as it did at the peak of vaccination in September and October.
“At the peak of our when we were vaccinating a large number of people last year in September and October we were getting somewhere around about 1000 a week when we were fully staffed and operating at our peak effectiveness,” Mr Sharp said.
“I don’t think we’ll hit those numbers, and for two reasons ... we have had to reduce the number of staffing as part of the planned program, but the booster intervals have been reduced.
“So we’re trying to juggle increased demand in terms of booster doses plus the increased demand with children in terms of the five- to 11-year-olds.
“We’re going to, as I said before, try and get as many children vaccinated as possible.”
Pharmacies and GPs will also be able to vaccinate children from Monday, January 10. Check your local clinic for details.
13°C