AN INJECTION of extra Pfizer doses has allowed one of the city's major COVID vaccination centres to re-open first-jab bookings.
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UFS confirmed it was once again taking new appointments for the vaccine at its Dana Street site with new Pfizer stock to be available from next Monday. Pfizer bookings for the UFS hub had been paused for almost a month with the centre's allocation exhausted in the wake of opening up eligibility to under-40s.
This comes as children aged 12 to 15 have become eligible to book Pfizer appointments this week.
The UFS had still been taking bookings for first-dose AstraZeneca.
UFS chief Lynne McLennan said the organisation was grateful for the extra Pfizer stock to help meet community demands.
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Meanwhile, Grampians Public Health Unit is working on what pop-up jab sites might look like in areas listed by the state government on Sunday as particularly vulnerable to spread.
Postcodes 3355 (Wendouree, Lake Gardens and Mitchell Park) and 3356 (Delacombe and Sebastopol) were identified as areas of low vaccination rates.
Grampians Public Health Unit's medical director Rosemary Aldrich said areas of low vaccination were more susceptible to the risks of spreading.
"The Grampians Public Health Unit in collaboration with all our health partners have been working from the start to be identifying people and communities who may be disinclined to attend a mass vaccination centre or prefer to have their own GP [general practitioner]. This has been the case throughout the Grampians region," Associate Professor Aldrich said.
"And so, we've been having bespoke ways of contacting and providing vaccine to such people...What that means for the vaccination program is even more honing ways we reach out and contact and provide information to people who live in those suburbs."
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