Northern Ireland's Health Minister has said the roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine is likely to be significantly ramped up with one of the largest deliveries of the AstraZeneca jab to Northern Ireland expected this week.
Speaking during a visit to a vaccination centre at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, Robin Swann said some of the regional vaccination centres are being moved from Pfizer to AstraZeneca due to the imminent delivery.
"Because of the size of this delivery, it will actually be two separate batches, one has a use-by date of the end of this month but with the numbers we are putting through now on a daily basis, we'll be able to manage that, it will be a challenge but we have logistics now in place to be able to cope with those large numbers," he said.
Mr Swann said the initial programme is "being stepped forward by a matter of weeks at each step".
"When we see the size of this delivery and actually have it here in Northern Ireland, we could be looking at the possibility of moving to a next stage along the programme, another age cohort being called forward some time soon," he said.
He described loss rate of vaccinations at the Ulster Hospital as 0.24% and said this was "mostly down to spoilage due to cracked vials rather than a waste due to management processes".
It comes as the Department of Health in Northern Ireland reported two further deaths among people who had previously tested positive for coronavirus.
The latest data from the department also shows another 240 people have tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours.
There were 222 patients with Covid-19 in hospital on Tuesday morning, 32 of whom were in intensive care.
On vaccinations, the department said that as of yesterday, 641,121 vaccines have now been administered, of which 596,527 were first doses and 44,594 were second doses.
