(The Center Square) – The Nevada State Board of Pharmacy issued guidance saying pharmacists can administer COVID-19 vaccines.
Walgreens and CVS stopped providing the vaccine due to fears it would exceed federal recommendations cited by state law. However, Amy Thibault, a CVS spokesperson, told the Nevada Independent that the drugstore chain will make these vaccines “available as soon as possible” in the state.
In the state pharmacy board’s guidance last week, it said it received several inquiries about whether a pharmacist could administer these vaccines under Nevada law, which says pharmacists need to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines.
The board said any pharmacist in Nevada can provide any Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccine, including the updated COVID one, as long as it follows the proper protocol.
Last week, the FDA approved updated COVID vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax for adults 65 and older. The federal agency now only recommends giving the updated COVID vaccine to all people 65 and older and younger people with serious health conditions, PBS reported. The age range for the eligible younger people begins at age 5 for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and age 12 for the Novavax shot. Patients as young as 6 months old, again only with serious health conditions, can get the Moderna vaccine.
In May, the CDC also changed its recommendations for the COVID vaccine, saying pregnant women and healthy kids don’t need it.
The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will be meeting Sept. 18 to discuss vaccine recommendations.
The Nevada pharmacy board said any pharmacist who administers a vaccine must do it “in compliance” with the CDC committee. The state pharmacy board said compliance is necessary so that a “pharmacist is competent to administer any given vaccine and knowledgeable about the risks” that a certain vaccine “poses to certain individuals or groups of people.”
Despite the CDC committee not recommending the updated COVID vaccine, it says pharmacists can still administer it because the panel has already given general recommendations regarding COVID vaccines.
However, once the ACIP administers specific guidelines for the updated COVID vaccine, Nevada pharmacists will be required to follow those guidelines.
Two states bordering Nevada, California and Oregon, are taking public health into their own hands.
Last week, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii created the West Coast Health Alliance, which will issue public health recommendations. The states said they made this new alliance because of what they called the Trump administration’s destruction of the CDC’s credibility.
