GP practices in Northern Ireland can expect to receive more deliveries of the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine on Friday.
Some 55% (39,245) of those aged 80 and older have already been inoculated by family doctors, the Health and Social Care Board said.
Dr Margaret O’ Brien, head of GP services at the Board, said: “We are working on our third delivery of the vaccination which is expected in the last week of January and which we expect will be able to meet GPs requirements to vaccinate all the over 80s, including those who are housebound and allow some practices to begin vaccinating those aged 75 years and older.”
Patients who are housebound will be contacted by their GP shortly. They will either be vaccinated by a GP or district nursing team.
Guidance has been finalised by the Department of Health around the safe handling of vaccine and infection control to allow this to be delivered in a patient’s home.
As the health trust mobile teams will be stopping the care home vaccination programme soon, new guidance will also shortly be issued to GPs around how new residents to care homes will be vaccinated.
A total of 166,538 doses have been administered, including 22,326 second jabs.
