Ireland will see benefits of Covid vaccines after 'three or four million' doses

A new daily vaccination record was set on Good Friday when more than 30,000 people received a shot.

Ireland will see benefits of Covid vaccines after 'three or four million doses'

An infectious diseases specialist says Ireland will feel the benefits of Covid-19 vaccines once three or four million doses are given.

Medics across Ireland have now given 930,000 doses of vaccines against Covid-19.

Mass inoculation centres have kept working through the Easter weekend in Dublin, Galway and Cork.

More than 13% of the population has had the first dose, and 5.4% has had a second.

A new daily vaccination record was set on Good Friday when more than 30,000 people received a shot.

Professor Sam McConkey of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) says it is very dependent on supply chains.

Professor McConkey told Newstalk: "Everyone in the world is looking for this - the whole world is a huge demand for this vaccine in every conceivable country.

"That discussion has been very widely had over the last two or three months with some successes but also some failures.

"The answer is it depends on the supply - but certainly once three or four million of us are vaccinated."

He added: "We've seen in Scotland, and we've seen in Israel where for various reasons they were able to - in Scotland get loads of AstraZeneca vaccine and in Israel loads of Pfizer vaccine - brought down the numbers dramatically in the community.

"These vaccines do work to solve the problem in a dramatic way."

HSE chief executive Paul Reid says the millionth dose will be given within days.

Mr Reid said: "So we can start to see the programme scaling up now, particularly as we move through April but also specifically into May, where we seem to see much higher volumes coming.

"Last week alone we have over 120,000 and we're on target to have at least, if not more than that over the coming week."

Meanwhile, a public health expert is expressing concern that the Brazilian variant could spread in this country.

It comes as 457 new cases of Covid-19 have been detected here along with three more deaths.

As of last night, 237 patients with the virus were being treated in hospital, with 61 in ICU.

DCU Professor Anthony Staines says the P1 variant is more transmissible.

He said: "We've seen some cases of the P1 variant spreading in Ireland and that variant is substantially more infectious than the variant we have now which in its term is substantially more infectious than the variant we had last summer.

"If it gets hold in the country it will be really challenging to bring case numbers down again."