The ACT's AstraZeneca vaccine rollout is starting in earnest on Wednesday, with front-line healthcare workers and border workers first in line to get the jab at the Garran Surge Centre.

But the rollout is set to start at a general practitioner level on March 22. By then, people who fall under "phase 1b" of the vaccine rollout plan should be eligible to get the new jab either at their doctor or at the Garran Surge Centre.

Phase 1b includes people over 70, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over 55, people with an underlying medical condition, and emergency services workers.

Australian Medical Association ACT president Dr Antonio Di Dio said many Canberra practices had already started phoning patients.

"We have assumed all along that there was probably not quite enough infrastructure at the federal Department of Health to individually telephone patients," Dr Di Dio said.

"[Medical practices] have assumed that we will be the ones contacting our own patients.

"So, many practices have started having their own meetings inside their practices to prioritise which patients they're going to vaccinate first and who is going to make those phone calls."

Dr Di Dio said Canberra's general practitioners were expecting to get at least 50 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine a week from March 22.

ACT health authorities said they would be able to roll out 250 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to front-line healthcare and border workers by the end of this week.

The Garran Surge Centre, where the jabs would be administered, previously operated as a COVID-19 testing clinic.

The testing side of the centre shut down on Monday evening so workers could transform it into an AstraZeneca vaccination hub. The Garran Surge Centre is also the only place where the Pfizer vaccine is being administered in the ACT.

ACT health authorities will keep their own stock of the AstraZeneca vaccine outside of the stock given to Canberra's general practitioners.

ACT authorities on Tuesday said that next week, Canberra Health Services staff expected to administer 1000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine as well as 1000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

The health service had so far been given a stockpile of 2800 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The assistant director of nursing for Canberra's COVID-19 response, Regina Ginich, said administering the AstraZeneca vaccine was much like administering the Pfizer vaccine.

"It's still given the same way by the nurse, we go through the same checks, and they do all the same screening before they give the vaccination," she said.

However, Ms Ginich said the AstraZeneca vaccine had to be drawn into a syringe when patients arrived at the Garran Surge Centre, rather than ahead of time.

"[With] Pfizer, once you've drawn that up out of the vial, we've got six hours that we can [use] the syringe whereas with the AstraZeneca vaccine, we have to give that in a much shorter timeframe," she said.

"We will pretty much be drawing up on demand."

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Anyone who attends the Garran Surge Centre to get a COVID-19 jab won't be able to choose which one they get while both the Pfizer vaccine and the AstraZeneca vaccine are being administered there.

Ms Ginich said the centre would roll out both vaccines concurrently and what one a person got would depend on what vaccine was allocated to the next available booking.

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