WITH THE EUROPEAN Medicines Agency (EMA) due to meet late this month and early next month about two of the Covid-19 candidate vaccines, a rollout is now on the horizon.

The HSE has said it is reasonable to expect Ireland’s vaccination programme to commence in early January, if all goes according to plan with European regulatory approval.

Currently the European Commission has agreements with six vaccine developers and the EMA has meetings planned already for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

In Ireland, the health service is pressing on with preparations for a roll-out, including he recent purchase of nine ultra-cold freezers. The vaccine taskforce is due to deliver its strategy to government by 11 December, covering logistics, workforce, communication and the collection of data on the efficacy of the vaccine.

As the roll-out of a vaccination programme approaches, we’re bringing back our Covid-19 Q&A series to help answer questions you may have, either about a specific vaccine candidate or about how the programme will work in Ireland. 

Send us your questions to answers@thejournal.ie and we’ll do our best to get through as many as we can over the coming weeks.