How will the COVID-19 vaccine be distributed in Mississippi? Here’s the state’s plan.
Two companies are requesting emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food & Drug Authorization for COVID-19 vaccinations that have proven safe and effective in clinical trials.
The Mississippi State Department of Health expects a vaccine to be available soon to Mississippians and has developed a COVID-19 vaccination plan.
Here are answers to questions about the vaccines and MSDH plans.
What is Mississippi’s plan for vaccine distribution?
MSDH is experienced at leading statewide vaccination campaigns, including for Hepatitis A and the swine flu epidemic of 2009-10. MSDH routinely conducts vaccine preparedness planning and has identified strengths and weaknesses from past campaigns to develop a draft plan for COVID-19 vaccinations.
The MSDH follows guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. MSDH’s offices of Emergency Preparedness and Immunization coordinate vaccination planning.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs has said the state will need additional funding, mainly for staffing and technology support.
State health officials have asked that Congress provide $8.4 billion for the massive nationwide effort, Dobbs said.
When will COVID vaccine be available?
A distribution timeline for vaccines is still being developed, but Dobbs expects the first doses in Mississippi as early as December. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer and partner BioNTech on Friday requested emergency-use authorization for its vaccine from the FDA. Clinical trials have shown the vaccine to be 95% effective.
Another company, Moderna, also is expected to seek emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine shown to be 94.5% effective.
Who will get the vaccine first?
With initial supplies of a vaccine expected to be limited, Mississippi’s draft plan calls for about 156,500 paid and unpaid workers in healthcare settings with potentially infectious patients to be vaccinated first.
Vaccinations would follow for first responders, food packaging and distribution workers, public school employees and students, and those at increased risk from grave illness due to age or underlying medical conditions, including nursing home residents.
Where will vaccines be available?
Vaccination sites would at first be limited to hospitals and satellite facilities where social distancing and infection control can be practiced.
As vaccines are offered to a larger population, the draft plan says, distribution sites would expand to include pharmacies, doctors offices, public health sites, including mobile centers, and federally qualified health centers.
COVID-19 vaccinations would eventually be integrated into routine vaccination programs statewide.
Will the COVID-19 vaccine be safe?
Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require two doses administered several weeks apart.
In large clinical trials, Science magazine reports, severe side effects from Moderna’s vaccine included fatigue in 9.7% of participants, muscle pain in 8.9%, joint pain in 5.2%, and headache in 4.5%; the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine resulted in fatigue in 3.8% of participants and headache in 2%.
The drugs must be reviewed by the FDA before they are approved for use, with monitoring to continue when vaccines are administered.
A statement from the FDA on its website says: “We are committed to expediting the development of COVID-19 vaccines, but not at the expense of sound science and decision making. We will not jeopardize the public’s trust in our science-based, independent review of these or any vaccines. There’s too much at stake.”
The FDA and CDC co-sponsor a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System as a national surveillance safety program, collecting and analyzing information on adverse reactions to vaccinations.
This story was originally published November 23, 2020 at 5:50 AM.
