There’s a push for high-risk or vulnerable Australians to have the COVID-19 vaccine and the flu jab concurrently.

The health advice has been for people to wait 14 days between vaccines.

The Immunisation Coalition, a not-for-profit advocacy group, is concerned Australians are delaying getting either vaccine based on the advice.

Infectious diseases physician and Associate Professor in the Faculty Of Medicine at UQ, Dr Paul Griffin, is one of the directors of the group.

He said heading into flu season, it was an important message.

“We are now much more comfortable with these vaccines we understand what the likely adverse effects were,” he said.

“When it means people are more likely to get both vaccines, or to get vaccinated more quickly, we think it’s a good idea to potentially get them at the same time.

“We know it doesn’t increase the risk of adverse events at all and doesn’t diminish the impact of either vaccine.”

Scientists at the university have also developed a new COVID-19 vaccine skin patch .

Dr Griffin said it was exciting technology.

“These patches have a number of properties that make it amazing, not only is needle free, they are also quite stable at room temp so eliminates some of the cold chain issues and seems to be an effective way of delivering the vaccine.”

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