Over 75,000 vaccines as Derry, Omagh and Enniskillen hubs start delivering AstraZeneca alongside Pfizer/BioNTech

Martin Quinn, from the Public Health Agency (PHA), said the milestone jab was pierced at its Omagh centre this week.

"We have now administered our 75,000th vaccine in the Western Trust area in our mass vaccination centres.

"It's a real tribute to all the staff involved. We have a whole team of different staff from pharmacists, from nurses, occupational therapists, doctors, cleaners, administration staff, volunteers, from the Red Cross, from the GAA, it's been one fantastic team effort and its success has been brilliant," he said.

Up until this week only the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was being administered in the three centres.

However, yesterday staff at the regional hubs started delivering the Oxford/AstraZeneca inoculation as well. Prior to Tuesday the AstraZeneca vaccine was solely being administered as part of the GP community-based vaccination programme.

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Mr. Quinn said: "We are now administering the AstraZeneca vaccine so all people now coming for a first dose will be receiving that and at the beginning of the week we have opened up the group to receive that to the 50 to 60 year olds and we're still administering vaccines to the 60 plus, plus the clinically vulnerable group and health and social care staff.

"We look forward to continuing with this work and getting everybody vaccinated so that we can work to contribute to opening up our country again," he said.

As of St. Patrick's Day 76,876 vaccinations had been delivered by the Derry, Omagh and Enniskillen centres, Of these, 65,711 were first doses and 11,165 were second doses.

A local breakdown for the number of vaccinations delivered through the GP programme is not available but across the north as a whole GP practices have administered 312,303 jabs.

In total 704,747 vaccinations - 640,801 first dosages and 63,946 second dosages - have now been delivered in the six counties.