COVID-19 vaccination at the Central Field Hospital in Honiara has entered its second day with the Governor-General His Excellency Sir David Vunagi taking opening the line of vaccination with his first COVID-19 vaccine jab.
As per the established workflow, the Governor-General filled his registration form and card and entered the field hospital where one of the nurses injected the vaccine followed by 30 minutes rest for observation before cleared to leave the hospital.
Following the Governor-General was the Speaker of National Parliament Patterson Oti, some of the judges and magistrates including the Ombudsman. Some of the COVID-19 frontliners, from the Ministry of health and fisheries, Ports Authority, and Heritage Park Hotel also came in for their first vaccinations today morning.
On the first day of vaccination, a total of 220 people were vaccinated which included the Prime Minster, Ministers of the Crown, Permanent Secretaries, COVID-19 oversight committee, vaccine national coordinating committee and technical working group members. This also includes some of the frontline workers from health, Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) and Solomon Airlines to name a few.
According to the updated COVID-19 vaccination roll-out plan following concerning increases of COVID-19 cases in neighbouring Bougainville, 7000 doses of the first batch of AstraZeneca will be administered in Honiara initially for priority groups such as front-liners, elderlies 55 years and above, those with underlying health conditions and the rest of the Honiara residents once more vaccines arrives.
17, 000 doses will be deployed to Western, Choiseul and Malaita provinces for vaccination of the western border communities. This week the Ministry of Health is gearing up for the deployment of relevant national staff to support provincial immunization teams to conduct vaccine awareness and training of vaccinators in these provinces before vaccination roll out for the borderline communities will commence.
COVID-19 vaccines that the government is and will be rolling out are those that are approved for emergency use by WHO and have passed all necessary safety and efficacy requirements thus it is safe to receive and effective to prevent sickness, hospitalization, and deaths by COVID-19.
