AMA prescribes central role for GPs in COVID-19 Vaccination roll out
AMA President, Dr Omar Khorshid, this week launched a new policy statement outlining the AMA’s position on safely and efficiently delivering a COVID-19 vaccine throughout Australia.
The AMA is calling for GPs to be central in the planning and roll-out of a broad-scale vaccination plan, highlighting that best practice involves the administration of a vaccine by a medical practitioner or a nurse working under the supervision of a medical practitioner.
Dr Khorshid said that winning the trust of the public will be key to the successful rollout of any COVID-19 vaccine in Australia.
“Regulators are working hard to streamline approval processes so that any successful vaccines can be distributed as quickly as possible,” Dr Khorshid said.
“Australia has a strong record on vaccine safety, due in great part to the rigour of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in assessing all medications before they are released to the Australian public.
“While we support the TGA’s efforts to speed up its approval processes in this case, given the scale of the pandemic, it must still apply its usual criteria to assess the safety, quality and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
“This is critical to winning public confidence.”
The Statement release coincides with the release of positive early results from the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine trial.
The AMA Statement on Vaccination for COVID-19 is available here.
