Department of Health – Primary Health Care COVID-19 Response Teleconference 26/05/2021 – Meeting notes from Dr Maria Boulton

The Primary Care Implementation Group (PCIG) is an online meeting that includes most primary healthcare peak bodies. It is convened weekly by the Department of Health as part of the COVID-19 response.

Dr Maria Boulton attends on behalf of AGPA.

Comments from AGPA

65% of AGPA members recently surveyed have responded indicating that they are willing or very willing to administer Pfizer vaccines.

Please clarify if we need to do investigations regarding antiphospholipid syndrome with thrombosis.
For example, if someone has had a DVT for with an unknown cause, who does not recall being tested for antiphospholipid syndrome, do we need to test them for it first?
Response: first do no harm, use clinical judgement and investigate if clinically indicated before vaccinating.

General Notes from the Meeting

Victorian outbreak. The cases in Victoria are the Indian strain of the virus. DoH are reviewing the situation on a daily basis and responding according to the situation as it develops.
States and Territories have issued orders for those who have been in areas of concern when they visited Victoria.
Each State/Territory has a different definition for a hot spot. The commonwealth also has a definition.
The DoH may call another PCIG meeting before next Wednesday due to the situation in Victoria.

Vaccination progress

A small number of RACF residents in Victoria have not been vaccinated yet. They expect to be have this completed in the next few days.

Half of the Australian population 75 years of age and over have been vaccinated.

Some pharmacies in regional, remote QLD will be joining the rollout.

There are some issues with clinic finder for people who have disabilities or disability care workers. Not all the available clinics are coming for them when they go through the eligibility checker. DOH will follow up on this.

Astra Zeneca second dose The recommended gap between the two Astra Zeneca doses is 12 weeks. There may be some special circumstances where it may need to be done earlier. There is ATAGI and TGA advice on health.gov.au. Need to clearly document clinical reason if giving the second dose earlier. eg people travelling overseas

Pre dosing with anti-inflammatory agents – recommended to pre-dose with any anti-inflammatory agent, eg nurofen, aspirin to prevent symptoms or blood clots with AZ vaccine.

When is Pfizer going to be available to GPs?  Some will be rolled out through GP respiratory clinics. the change in refrigeration requirements is good news for later in the year when more Pfizer vaccines are available. There will be weekly updates on this issue.

Important to continue the clear messaging with winter coming.

Flu Vaccine Program – As at COB 24 May 2021:

• 5,544,241 doses of seasonal influenza vaccines have been administered and entered in to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) in 2021, compared to around 7,894,556 doses for the same time in 2020 and 4,735,982 doses in 2019.
  • 734,479 doses have been administered by Pharmacies and 3,931,987 by GPs.
• TGA has released 20,424,883 doses for the Australian market:
  • 9,346,545 doses for the National Immunisation Program (NIP) as well as state and territory government programs
  • 11,078,338 doses for the private market
• The geographical breakdown of vaccines reported to AIR at cob 24 may 2021 is here

Please note: These are Maria’s notes from the meeting and may be incomplete.