Nine hubs will be established across Victorian public hospitals to store and distribute the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine as the state government prepares for an expected roll out of late February.
The nine hubs set up across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria will be at the following hospitals: Western Health, Austin Health, Monash Health, Goulburn Valley Health, Barwon Health, Latrobe Health, Bendigo Health, Ballarat Health and Albury-Wodonga Health.
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"We will distribute it from those nine hubs to the priority workforce and the priority groups identified by the prime minister earlier this week," Health Minister Martin Foley said.
"They go to groups such as our frontline workers in the health and infectious diseases areas, our quarantine workforce and those priority workforces."
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the first COVID-19 vaccine to receive Commonwealth regulatory approval in Australia.
Vaccines will be available in phases with high-risk groups to be prioritised.
The first people eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine as part of Phase 1a include: quarantine and border workers, hotel quarantine staff, frontline at-risk healthcare workers, hospital staff working in COVID-19 wards, emergency department and ICU staff, COVID-19 testing staff, GP respiratory clinic staff, ambulance staff and paramedics, aged care and disability care staff and residents.
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Mr Foley said there was no date confirmed for when the vaccine would be made available, but preparations to roll out the vaccine were underway.
"We are working on the basis that as soon as the vaccine is made available we will be in a position to start that rollout in accordance with the agreed processes," he said.
Two doses are provided at least three weeks apart and the vaccine must be stored and transported at -70C.
Monash Health Medical Director for Infection Prevention Rhonda Stuart said staff were "really well-prepared" to store and distribute the vaccine.
The Pfizer jab would be distributed to Monash Health's three hospitals in Casey, Dandenong and Clayton.
"We've been preparing since before Christmas to be one of these hubs," she said.
"We've been going through procedures to make sure we deliver the vaccine in the safest way possible and we are all prepared for the roll out as soon as the vaccine hits our doors.
"We have freezers now ready at Monash, waiting for the doses to arrive and we have really great processes for distributing that vaccine to the clinics."
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Monash Health has the capacity to store 180,000 doses of vaccine across two industrial freezers.
Vaccinations among 5000 priority staff are set to take place in early March.
"We've had many discussions with our staff who are really keen to get the vaccine," Professor Stuart said.
"We are working with them all really closely to make sure that happens as soon as possible."
The COVID-19 jab will not be mandatory, but Mr Foley encouraged people to embrace the program and get vaccinated.
"This vaccination program stops the disease, it stops people dying," he said.
"I think that's a pretty good motivation for people to get vaccinated."
Further rollout of other vaccines, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, will depend on the Commonwealth's regulatory approval.
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