Vaccines for people 75 and older are being administered at UAB Hospital.
Dr. Sarah Nafziger vice president of Clinical Support Services at UAB Medicine and professor of medicine, said 23,300 vaccines have been administered.
“The great news here at UAB is we’ve received a good bit of vaccine and our vaccine administration process is working very well,” Nafziger said, “About 67% of those have gone to UAB employees, with the remainder going to employees of predominantly other healthcare institutions within our service area.”
Of those vaccines, Nafziger said they have also been given to first responders.
“We’re very pleased with the efficiency of this operation and we’re happy to be able to provide this service not only to our employees, but also to employees of other institutions in our service area,” Nafziger said.
Nafziger said she is proud of the hospital’s logistics team and volunteers that have made this process run well.
“Here at UAB, as soon as we’re getting vaccine doses, we’re getting them in the arms of people,” Nafziger said. “We’re not waiting, we’re not sitting around we’re not stalling.”
1,100 doses of the vaccine are administered daily at the Margaret Cameron Spain site. This is a combination of first and second doses of the shot.
Nafziger said the UAB Highlands parking deck is used for COVID-19 testing in the morning and vaccines during the afternoon.
“Anyone over the age of 75, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a healthcare worker or a first responder, if you’re over the age of 75, then you’re now eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccine,” Nafziger said.
UAB Hospital patients that are 75 or older will receive an email to schedule a vaccination appointment. The hospital is making accomodations for those without email access.
“We’ve had tremendous response from our patient population,” Nafziger said. “A lot of people are very eager to receive this vaccine and we are thrilled by that, because we know that getting this vaccine in the arms of people and getting it delivered is going to end this pandemic. So we’re very excited that there is a lot of demand for this vaccine.”
Nafziger said the hospital is working to open additional vaccination sites as more doses arrive in the future.
“Our only limitation right now is just making sure we have vaccine doses available and allocated for us so that we can deliver that vaccine,” Nafziger said.
