15,000 people so far vaccinated on Malaita

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

Auki

AS of Wednesday this week, a total of 15,613 people have taken their vaccine since the roll-out of covid-19 vaccination program in Malaita province.

An achievement for the provincial health however, the sad thing was the figure only represents 17 percent of the target population of 89,666 for the province.

Person in-charge of the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for covid-19 at Kilu’ufi hospital, Malaita province, Nixon Olofisau told Sun Auki yesterday.

He said since the launch of the program on 23^rd August in Auki, provincial roll-out has begun early September for central and northern regions of the province.

And as of yesterday, the 28 days vaccination roll-out for the two regions had completed and will review for the next roll-out.

Olofisau said now the focus is on southern and eastern regions of the province and they’re into the second week of their community vaccination roll-out.

He said reasons for delaying roll-out for the two regions were due to shortage of logistic and to learn from the roll-out in the first two regions.

Olofisau said so far positive report continued to be received from southern and eastern regions as vaccination teams are on the ground.

He added data collected as off Wednesday this week on the overall vaccination roll-out for the province as follows;

He said the vaccination rate was well below the expected trend and provincial health is working tirelessly on putting in inputs into the program to pick up the rate.

Olofisau said the main reason for the dull coverage so far was due to hesitancy and opposition to the vaccine and it still remain at large among people in the province.

He said even though a lot of break-through has been made, the provincial health is concern about addressing the challenges to make sure people in the province gets vaccinated.