The next phase of the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out will give the jab to more than 70,000 people aged over 85 over the next three weeks.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said there would be about 20,000 vaccines distributed to 84 GP practices across about 20 counties this week.
He said that next week the programme would be ramped up further, getting to another 384 practices. The balance of the practices will get their deliveries of the vaccine in the first week of March.
He said GPs had started contacting the people on their books to organise for them to come in to receive the vaccine.
This would mark “an important week” in the fightback against the virus, with the further roll-out of the vaccination programme to the general population, he said. The first phase had focused on long-term residential care and frontline healthcare workers.