Vaccination of vulnerable patients at Our Lady's Hospital on Thursday
The vaccination of younger people with underlying illnesses is expected to begin in Our Lady's Hospital, Navan on Thursday, as the Covid-19 vaccination programme ramps up.
The hospital has been contacting patients this week to make appointments for vaccinations on Thursday.
This comes as local GPs continue the vaccination of the elderly at local practices.
The news will come as a relief to many vulnerable patients as Meath's incidence of the virus remains stubbornly high, with 448 new cases of the virus in county in the last 14 days.
Meanwhile, a further 371 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has said this evening.
21 of those cases were in Meath.
NPHET also said that 24 new deaths had been reported.
The total number of confirmed cases of the virus in Ireland is now 231,484. There have been a total of 4,610 deaths related to Covid-19 here to date.
As of 8pm last night (Monday) there were three people being treated for Covid-19 in Our Lady's Hospital in Navan and six in Drogheda. One of those in Drogheda was in intensive care and the Drogheda hospital was treating one suspected case.
Across the country there were 357 COVID-19 patients hospitalised, of which 76 are in ICU. There have been 25 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.
Of the cases notified today:
183 are men and 187 are women
75% are under 45 years of age
the median age is 30 years old
151 are in Dublin, 31 in Offaly, 27 in Donegal, 25 in Galway, 21 in Meath and the remaining 116 cases are spread across 16 other counties
The HSE is currently gearing to ramp up the vaccination programme to the wider population.
The executive is currently in the process of setting up the vaccination centre in Simonstown, engaging staff and putting in place all the governance, policies, procedures and protocols required for the safe and efficient running of such a centre.
The public will be invited to log in to a national portal expressing their interest in receiving a vaccine and they will be generated an appointment to attend their local vaccination centre.
Vaccinations that are being undertaken this week are residents of disability and mental health residential settings many of whom have underlying conditions.