BY MAVIS N PODOKOLO
THE government of Australia has offered 60,000 does of AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine to Solomon Islands.
This was confirmed by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare on Monday.
“I am also extremely happy to inform you that the government of Australia has offered 60,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines manufactured from the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) in Melbourne,” Sogavare said.
He said Solomon Islands is one of four countries in the region that had been prioritised to be the first recipients of the CSL manufactured AstraZeneca vaccines. The others being Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Timor Lester.
“On behalf of my government, I thanked the government of Australia for this tremendous donation of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines which my government accepts,” Sogavare said.
He said the approval and use in Solomon Islands will be considered this week by the National Drugs Medicine and Therapeutic Committee of Solomon Islands.
Sogavare said Australia plans to transport 10,000 doses per week.
He said Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Timor Lester, Tonga and Tuvalu have already given their approvals for this CSL AstraZeneca vaccines. Both Fiji and Timor Lester received their first shipment of CSL AstraZeneca vaccines last week with Fiji receiving 10,000 doses and 20,000 doses for Timor Lester.
“Our Initially allocation of 10,000 was reallocated to Timor Lester because we want to ensure our National Drugs Medicine and Therapeutic Committee have the opportunity to first consider and approve its use in Solomon Islands which will happen this week,” Sogavare said.
He said, “the CSL AstraZeneca vaccines are manufactured using the exact same formular as the AstraZeneca vaccine we have received from India.”
