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.
“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.
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.