How Pharmacy Technicians Can Be Certified to Administer Immunizations in 2020 pharmacytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pharmacytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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With the Covid-19 vaccine in short supply, hospital pharmacists found themselves in the unexpected position of throwing away one in every six doses of the first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines distributed this week in the United States.
The confusion came over labeling: The vaccine comes in vials labeled as containing enough for five doses. But pharmacists discovered that, after thawing and mixing the contents with a diluent, each vial contained enough vaccine for six doses. Without explicit approval from the manufacturer, that final dose had to be discarded.
“It was overtly clear early on there’s some extra volume,” said Russell Findlay, pharmacy manager at University of Utah Health. His colleagues called Pfizer on Tuesday to ask if they could use the extra dose, said Findlay, but the company wouldn’t give a definitive answer.
American Pharmacists Association Honors Research on Expanded Role for Pharmacy Technicians pharmacytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pharmacytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Rachel Bluth and Phil Galewitz
California Healthline
With front-line health workers and nursing home residents and staff expected to get the initial doses of COVID vaccines, the thornier question is figuring out who goes next.
The answer will likely depend on where you live.
While an influential federal advisory board is expected to make its recommendations later this month, state health departments and governors will make the call on who gets access to a limited number of vaccines this winter.
As a result, it’s been a free-for-all in recent weeks as manufacturers, grocers, bank tellers, dentists and drive-share companies all jostle to get a spot near the front of the line.
Businesses in the country step up push to get their workers higher up the list
Ahead of shipments of Pfizer s coronavirus vaccine arriving at US hospitals from Monday, calls have been made for diverse workers-from Uber drivers and bank tellers to pharmacists and makers of household goods like toilet paper-to be considered essential service providers entitled to early doses. Everybody believes that their own workers should be first in line for vaccine doses, said Jeff Levin-Scherz, co-leader of Willis Towers Watson s health management practice.
An expert panel advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week overwhelmingly recommended that the first doses go to the nation s 21 million healthcare workers and 3 million residents of long-term care facilities. They fall into what has been called Phase 1a of distribution of the vaccine, which Pfizer developed with BioNTech.