Pharmacies should have been warned about Australia’s switch to rapid antigen tests after a crisis National Cabinet meeting, the industry says.

National president at Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Trent Twomey, hit out at the federal government’s short-sightedness and said pharmacies were not told of the plan to move away from PCR testing.

“We were one of the last countries in the world to transition from PCR to rapid antigen, National Cabinet should have told us in December … that they were going to dump PCR and go with rapid antigen [tests].

“If all of the pharmacies knew in December, we would have been able to place enough orders for enough stock in January, but we weren’t told until New Year’s Eve.”

He said the demand for the COVID-19 vaccine for children was also high, but the supply was impacted by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

“The restriction on rolling out the childhood program is actually the availability of stock from Pfizer to the Commonwealth of Australia, so it’s all the way back up in the supply chain because we are an early adopter of this vaccine.”

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