AN ADDITIONAL 16,000 people will be fully vaccinated by the end of July as part of a private scheme by Pfizer Ireland to inoculate staff and their family members, the company has estimated.

Representing 0.43% of the eligible adult population, the slight bump to the vaccine rollout will be welcome at the end of the month as the race to get as many people vaccinated as possible before the Delta variant takes hold in Ireland continues.

As things stand, over 50% of adults are fully vaccinated, while some 69% of adults have received their first dose. 

The pharmaceutical giant began vaccinating staff who were deemed essential to the supply of its coronavirus vaccine earlier in the year, extending the scheme to non-essential workers after that – covering Pfizer’s more than 4,000 staff across its five locations in Ireland.

The company started offering family members of employees the Covid-19 vaccine back in April, and estimates it will have 8,000 family members fully vaccinated by month’s end. 

Pfizer has said previously that the scheme does not affect the supply of the State’s vaccination programme.

“By end of July, we estimate about 16,000 colleagues / colleague family will have been vaccinated by Pfizer,” a spokesperson for Pfizer in Ireland told TheJournal.

The vaccine manufacturer said it is in the process of sharing its information on vaccinated staff and family members with the HSE.

The latest figures from the HSE show that Pfizer provided more than 2.9 million of the almost 4.4 million doses administered in Ireland to date. 

That’s made up of nearly 2.5 million first doses, just under 1.8 million second doses, and over 72,000 single doses (i.e. the Johnson & Johnson vaccine).

Of doses administered so far, approximately 2.9 million have been Pfizer, 1 million have been AstraZeneca, 398,000 have been Moderna with 72,000 Janssen have been administered.

The company is also set to begin producing key Covid-19 vaccine components later this year from its Grange Castle plant in west Dublin. The substance that will be created is the mRNA drug substance, which is a key part of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.