Asda to be the first supermarket to offer coronavirus vaccines in-store

13 January 2021, 10:23

By Polly Foreman

The jabs will be administered by trained staff at the Asda Birmingham in-store pharmacy.

Asda will start to offer coronavirus vaccines toward the end of this month, becoming the first supermarket to do so.

The jabs will be offered at an in-store pharmacy at a store in Birmingham from 25 January, after the supermarket was specially selected by NHS England.

Read more: Full list of new supermarket lockdown rules, from face masks to group shopping

The service will be provided to priority groups identified by the NHS, and you should not contact the store directly to book one.

The individuals offered the vaccine will have the opportunity to select Asda from a list of locations if it is in a convenient location for them.

Asda will be transforming its George department in the Birmingham store to make way for a Covid vaccination centre, and it will be open from 8am to 8pm every day, and have the capacity to administer 250 jabs a day.

Asda president Roger Burnley said: "We are incredibly proud to provide this service and are keen to do all we can to help the NHS and Government accelerate the rollout of the vaccination programme.

Read more: The 10 areas in England with the highest week-on-week increase in Covid-19 cases

"We have an extensive nationwide logistics network that could support the storage and distribution of the vaccine and our highly-trained pharmacy colleagues are experienced in delivering large vaccination programmes, having recently provided nearly 200,000 flu jabs to members of the public.

"We are on hand to provide the NHS with any practical support required so that more people can quickly receive the vaccine."

At present, the Pfizer /BioNTech vaccine has been approved for the Birmingham store, but Asda has offered full use of its 238 stores for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine programme - as this is easier to transport and store.

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