As the vaccine rollout program is running at a slow pace across the US, the administration has decided to hire pharmacy technicians to administer the vaccines. They are now being trained to follow the vaccination process.
The US has more than 400,000 pharmacy techs and they are not allowed to administer vaccines in many states. However, the Department of Health and Human Services has authorized pharmacy techs to administer the vaccines.
Pharmacy Technicians Recruited To Speed Up Vaccine Rollout Program
The authorities have already sent the training kits to the technicians and pharmacy associations to provide the suitable training. The associations said that pharmacy techs are eager to get involved in the process and help the public health workers in this situation.
Experts say that it is not difficult to provide the required training with regard to the vaccination process. Training to do injections into the deltoid muscle is very easy and pharmacy techs will be able to easily do this with very little training. Doctors are of the opinion that even people without experience can learn to give shots within a short duration of time.
Health experts say that learning the basics in the proper manner and maintaining good hand hygiene are the most important thing with regards to giving shots. Interestingly, the trainees are taught to inject oranges in the initial stages before they are allowed to try them on real people. The authorities said that nursing schools and pharmacy schools already have such methods in their syllabus.
Health secretary Alex Azar said that the vaccination programs should move away from hospitals to venues like pharmacies in order to speed up the vaccination program. Several states have been given permission to start using the pharmacy chains for the mass vaccination program.
In this manner, the pharmacy technicians will be able to improve the speed of the vaccination program in the near future. As of now, about 10 million people have received vaccines across the country even as more than 30 million doses have been distributed to hospitals.
Many rural hospitals and other low income communities lack the required number of medical staff to boost the vaccination program. Given this situation, the federal government plans to hire more techs in the near future so that they can spread across the country and boost the vaccination program.
Biden has proposed to allocate about $20 billion to boost the vaccination program across the country. Health experts are of the opinion that they would be able to vaccinate a majority of the population in the next few months. As of now, the vaccines have to be given in two doses in the proper time interval.
Health experts are enthusiastic about the vaccine developed by Johnson and Johsoan as it is a single dose covid vaccine. The company had recently reported that they are in the final stages of clinical trials. It was reported that the clinical trials have shown promising results in most people over the age of 18. In this regard, the company is likely to approach FDA for emergency use authorization in the next month.
According to health experts, this can become a game changer as the vaccine is easier to administer and health authorities need not worry about storing reserve vaccines for the second dose. Apart from these vaccines, two more companies are also in the final stages of clinical trials. The FDA is monitoring the progress in this regard and also working towards speeding up the approval process.
Pfizer and Moderna have said that they are improving the manufacturing process in the near future. The companies are expected to supply millions of doses of covid vaccines to the federal government in 2021.