HEALTH Minister Vaughan Gething has praised Powys Teaching Health Board for the progress made in delivering the coronavirus vaccine to its residents.

It comes as Mr Gething announced that Wales' vaccination programme is ready to “move up another gear” next week with supply of the Oxford jab expected to double.

Around 176,000 people in Wales have now had their first dose of the vaccine – which is about 5.1 per cent – and the health minister said figures surrounding the roll-out of the vaccine in Powys show the Welsh Government are on course to confirm “exactly what we set out to do”.

“We’ll be openly providing the data and information so people can see the progress we’re making and the overall number of people receiving the vaccines,” said Mr Gething at his Wednesday briefing.

“And I’m confident enough to be able to say that because we already know that Powys is issuing invitation letters to over 70s because of the progress it has made in care homes and with the over 80s and other health boards are expected to follow over the next week or so.

“So that really does show the pace is picking up and I’m confident the information we publish over the next week or two will confirm that we’ve done exactly what we set out to do.”

The praise for Powys comes despite the fact Wales is lagging behind the rest of the UK in delivery of the vaccine. As of January 18, Wales had given first vaccine doses to 5.1 per cent of its population. This compared to 7 per cent of the population in Northern Ireland, 6.55 per cent in England and 5.2 per cent in Scotland.

At the end of last week, Mr Gething acknowledged that Wales was lagging “slightly” behind but said “we are making real progress” and “the differences are relatively small”.

Despite Wales tracking below the level of vaccinations needed to hit its target of administering the jab to the four most vulnerable groups by mid-February, Mr Gething is optimistic the increased supply of vaccines being received in Wales would make it possible to achieve it.

He said a further 60,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would be provided for use in mass vaccination centres in Wales this week. The coronavirus incidence rate in Wales, meanwhile, has fallen below 300 cases per 100,000 for the first time in a number of weeks.

The total number of people to have received a vaccination means that more than 10,000 people a day have received the jab so fare, although these figures remain some way off the amount needed for the Welsh Government to hit their targets to get the highest priority groups vaccinated by mid-February.

Public Health Wales said a total of 175,816 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had now been given, an increase of 13,884 on the previous day's figure.

The agency said 370 second doses were also given, an increase of 105.