Ireland’s COVID-19 vaccination programme strategy is to distribute all available vaccine as quickly as is operationally possible, prioritising those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19.
The programme is based on the principles of safety, effectiveness and fairness, with the objective of reducing severe illness, hospitalisations and deaths from COVID-19 infection.
There was a very welcome announcement last week by the European Commission of the significant acceleration of the delivery of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, with the first doses to be delivered to Ireland during the week of 26 April 2021.
The following is an update on the total number of vaccines delivered to Ireland, up to and including Friday 16 April 2021.
| Period | Pfizer | Moderna | AstraZeneca | Janssen | Total |
| To end March 2021 | 737,100 | 109,200 | 340,800 | 1,187,100 | |
| Apr-21 | |||||
| Week 14 2021 | 135,720 | 135,720 | |||
| Week 15 2021 | 136,890 | 14,400 | 14,400* | 165,690 | |
| Total | 1,009,710 | 109,200 | 355,200 | 14,400* | 1,488,510 |
* NIAC is due to shortly consider the EMA announcement of Tuesday 20th April in relation to COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen
As of Monday 19 March, 1,219,487 doses of vaccine have been administered in Ireland.
Moderna Inc has requested that 50% of its vaccine is held back for second doses. Similarly, an appropriate buffer amount is built up and held back for all vaccines to ensure availability of second doses for the following week. Currently, about 95% of available vaccines are administered within seven days of arrival in Ireland.
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