Pharmacies across Waterford are expected to be able to administer COVID-19 vaccines in the coming weeks.
Health Minister, Stephen Donnelly said on Monday that the vaccination programme will be extended to pharmacies later this month.
Paul Kenny of Haven Kenny's Pharmacy in Tramore says it's actually more doable now than it was a couple of months ago:
"The fact that the supply has been so poor to date, it made sense for the HSE to administer it in fewer locations that can do it at a high rate - like the vaccination centres, and like GP centres.
"But now that the supply is improving and the number of vaccines and types of vaccines that are available, it absolutely makes sense to involve pharmacies.
"You know, we're very well positioned and distributed across the country to catch the number of people who mightn't have been vaccinated to date."
Continuing, Paul said pharmacists would be an asset to the vaccination programme, given their frequent interaction with members of their local communities:
"We're very well positioned to chat to hesitant people or people who might be a bit nervous about it that are at the counter and they're coming into us on a weekly or monthly basis anyway.
"And indeed those that might live a long way away from a vaccination centre.
"Take somebody that lives in West Waterford - it's a two-hour roundtrip to come to the WIT Centre and get your vaccine, as I did last week. It would be much handier to pop into a pharmacy in West Waterford."
Meanwhile, the HSE is considering the findings of a HIQA report which states that the duration of presumptive immunity from Covid-19 could be stretched from six to nine months post infection.
The report looked at over 600 thousand people who had been re-infected with covid.
The results mean people under 50 who've had the virus in the past nine months may only need one dose of a vaccine.
