ASTRA THIS FRIDAY

BY MAVIS N PODOKOLO

COVID-19 vaccine, AstraZeneca, doses have been confirmed to arrive on Friday this week (March 19).

Dr Gregory Jilini, incident controller, during the covid-19 radio talkback show yesterday said this AstraZeneca vaccine is received through the COVAX facility.

AstaZeneca is one of the World Health Organisation (WHO) approved covid-19 vaccines which it regards as ‘safe and effective’ for human use.

Mr Jilini said equipping of health workers who will administer the vaccine will happen this week and vaccination is expected to start next week.

“The expected doses are expected to arrive in the country this week on Friday, March 19, 2021.

“At present the first target group to receive the vaccine will be our front liners and essential staff,” he said.

Jilini also confirms that more vaccine are yet to come and the aim is to eventually vaccinate the whole population.

He said in the past two weeks health teams have conducted awareness and close to 500 front-line workers were involved in the awareness programme.

“We will be continuing the awareness with our partner ministries. Also, the covid-19 vaccine talkback show will still be running so keep tuning in at the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation for more updates,” said Jilini.

Jimmie Rodgers, deputy chair to Oversight Committee and secretary to the Prime Minister, said on vaccine rollout a lot of activities will be happening this week.

“On this rollout the border zones will be featured inside and during this week Ministry of Health and Medical Service will put in names of individuals,” said Rodgers.

He said it is important for all permanent secretaries in all front-line ministries to identify who from that ministry, his/her name must be on the list that will be vaccinated.

“Because our aim is to complete the vaccination in three weeks. Meaning there will be quite a number of vaccinations a day. And we will be carefully monitoring it at the end of each week to monitor those that will be vaccinated and those that are yet to be protected.

“People assist health Ministry to get on to the names as soon as possible,” said Rodgers.

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