Malta's COVID-19 vaccination programme will be brought forward by two weeks because of the arrival of the Astra Zeneca jab on Sunday, the health minister has said.
Chris Fearne said that people who are considered medically vulnerable will also from next week begin receiving appointments for the vaccine, which was recently approved by the EU.
Fearne was addressing the media at a press conference at the Sir Anthony Mamo oncology centre on Thursday.
The minister said that while not all patients may receive their appointment within the first week, as letters are being sent out in batches, the scheduled vaccination of the medically vulnerable had been brought forward significantly as it had originally been scheduled to occur in mid-March.
Malta has one million doses of Astra Zeneca’s vaccine on order, which was approved by the European Medicines Agency at the end of January.
The minister declined to comment when asked how many doses are expected to arrive on Sunday.
Malta will be restricting the use of Astra Zeneca vaccines to people aged 55 and under. Earlier this week, Fearne said that while the vaccine is safe for use by people of all ages, studies on its efficacy in older people are not yet sufficient, which is why Malta will be limiting its use to people aged between 18 and 55.
Fearne added that vaccine roll-out was doing well and that this week health services had upped the number of doses given to patients daily, with over two thousand people having been scheduled to take the vaccine on Thursday. He added that by this evening, some 34,000 doses of the vaccine will have been dispensed in total.
Malta has moved into the second phase of vaccine rollout, with citizens over 80 and non-medical front liners, including army personnel and police officers, beginning to receive the vaccine this week.
Fearne added that 90% of medical frontliners had received the first dose of the vaccine and a significant portion had also received their second dose. Some 90% of residents in old people’s homes have also been vaccinated.