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Preparing and administering COVID-19 Vaccines

Anna Bischler, Lead Medicines Information Pharmacist, Midlands and East Medicines Advice Service (East site)Published Last updated See all updates
Topics: AdministeringAll vaccines: Answers to QuestionsPreparing

Guidance on preparing and administering common to all available COVID-19 vaccines, and specific to individual vaccines

This article forms part of a series
  1. Preparing and administering COVID-19 Vaccines
    1. Administering COVID-19 vaccines to individuals at extremes of bodyweight
    2. Preparing and administering the COVID-19 Vaccine Pfizer-BioNTech
    3. Preparing and administering the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca
    4. Preparing and administering the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna
    5. Administering COVID-19 vaccines to children and young people
Contents
  1. Purpose
  2. Additional clarifications
    1. Batch numbers
    2. Expiry date
  3. See also
  4. Change history

Purpose

Appropriate preparation and administration of COVID-19 vaccines may depend on patient characteristics and be independent of vaccine choice, or it may depend on the specific pharmaceutical characteristics of the individual vaccine.

Our guidance and standard operating procedures cover both aspects.

Additional clarifications

In addition to our SOPs, further points of clarification related to preparation and administration are as follows.

Batch numbers

Only vaccine batches which are licensed or approved under under Regulation 174 of the Human Medicine Regulations 2012 (as amended) are in the legitimate supply chain. Products supplied by AAH, Alloga or Movianto may be assumed to be approved. If there are any questions about a specific vaccine batch, please refer to your Regional QA Specialist.

It is not necessary for the same patient to receive both doses of vaccine from the same batch.

See further information if the same brand of vaccine is unavailable for the second dose

Expiry date

The expiry date shown on the vaccine is the date after which the vaccine should no longer be used. The product can be used up until midnight on the date shown i.e. if the expiry date is shown as 31.3.21 then the product can be used up until 23:59 on the 31st March 2021.

See also

Minimising the risk of administration of the wrong COVID-19 vaccine

A series of steps will help sites separate multiple vaccines as much as possible throughout the vaccination process, from receipt through to administration

Change history

  1. Information related to batch specific checks removed
  1. Information reviewed and remains current and correct
  1. Amendment to reflect that licensed products are also in the supply chain
  1. The article on administering COVID-19 vaccines to children and young people added to the series list
  1. Information on expiry dates added
  1. Information related to batch numbers added
  1. Published