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Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing. The unprecedented challenges worldwide implore the urgent development of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Globally, pharmacists have been delivering important public health services as part of the COVID-19 response. It remains to be seen what role...

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Autores principales: Lee, Lois, Peterson, Gregory M., Naunton, Mark, Jackson, Shane, Bushell, Mary
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7712642/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33114654
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy8040199
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author Lee, Lois
Peterson, Gregory M.
Naunton, Mark
Jackson, Shane
Bushell, Mary
author_facet Lee, Lois
Peterson, Gregory M.
Naunton, Mark
Jackson, Shane
Bushell, Mary
author_sort Lee, Lois
collection PubMed
description Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing. The unprecedented challenges worldwide implore the urgent development of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Globally, pharmacists have been delivering important public health services as part of the COVID-19 response. It remains to be seen what role they will play once a vaccine is available. This review examines herd immunity and the potential role of the pharmacy profession in mass vaccination against COVID-19, particularly within the Australian context. Aim: A literature review was conducted to review the global development of COVID-19 vaccines, and the Australian healthcare workforce capability and existing policy for mass vaccination and the potential role of the pharmacist. Method: ScienceDirect, Scopus, The National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Wiley Online Library, PubMed, and Google Scholar were used to search for relevant literature using keywords COVID-19, vaccines, immunisation, herd immunity, pandemic, pharmacist and Australian healthcare. Results: A large portion of the literature was journal articles, and information from governmental and international bodies such as the World Health Organisation were often referenced. Over 20 million Australians need to be immunised through vaccination or acquire immunity through natural infection for the country to achieve herd immunity for COVID-19. When examining state and territory pandemic plans, pharmacists are underutilised. Modifying legislation to allow pharmacists to administer approved COVID-19 vaccines will enable a trained and skilled workforce to be deployed to increase the rate of mass vaccination. Conclusion: In preparation for a successful COVID-19 vaccine, the Australian Government must consider various elements in their vaccination policy. This includes the estimated herd immunity threshold, methods of vaccine delivery, vaccine clinic locations, staffing arrangements and training, and strategies for vaccine prioritisation. Pharmacists can and should play a key role in the roll out of mass COVID-19 vaccination.
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spelling pubmed-77126422020-12-04 Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination Lee, Lois Peterson, Gregory M. Naunton, Mark Jackson, Shane Bushell, Mary Pharmacy (Basel) Review Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing. The unprecedented challenges worldwide implore the urgent development of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Globally, pharmacists have been delivering important public health services as part of the COVID-19 response. It remains to be seen what role they will play once a vaccine is available. This review examines herd immunity and the potential role of the pharmacy profession in mass vaccination against COVID-19, particularly within the Australian context. Aim: A literature review was conducted to review the global development of COVID-19 vaccines, and the Australian healthcare workforce capability and existing policy for mass vaccination and the potential role of the pharmacist. Method: ScienceDirect, Scopus, The National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Wiley Online Library, PubMed, and Google Scholar were used to search for relevant literature using keywords COVID-19, vaccines, immunisation, herd immunity, pandemic, pharmacist and Australian healthcare. Results: A large portion of the literature was journal articles, and information from governmental and international bodies such as the World Health Organisation were often referenced. Over 20 million Australians need to be immunised through vaccination or acquire immunity through natural infection for the country to achieve herd immunity for COVID-19. When examining state and territory pandemic plans, pharmacists are underutilised. Modifying legislation to allow pharmacists to administer approved COVID-19 vaccines will enable a trained and skilled workforce to be deployed to increase the rate of mass vaccination. Conclusion: In preparation for a successful COVID-19 vaccine, the Australian Government must consider various elements in their vaccination policy. This includes the estimated herd immunity threshold, methods of vaccine delivery, vaccine clinic locations, staffing arrangements and training, and strategies for vaccine prioritisation. Pharmacists can and should play a key role in the roll out of mass COVID-19 vaccination. MDPI 2020-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7712642/ /pubmed/33114654 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy8040199 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Lee, Lois
Peterson, Gregory M.
Naunton, Mark
Jackson, Shane
Bushell, Mary
Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination
title Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination
title_full Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination
title_fullStr Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination
title_full_unstemmed Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination
title_short Protecting the Herd: Why Pharmacists Matter in Mass Vaccination
title_sort protecting the herd: why pharmacists matter in mass vaccination
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7712642/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33114654
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy8040199
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