Vaccination Rollout to All Province by Friday 16th September
BY ALEX DADAMU
A total of 95,288 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered as of Friday 4th of September for 1st and 2nd doses of AstraZeneca and Sinopharm Vaccines.
This was according to Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in his nationwide address on Tuesday 7th September.
He said 23,871 people have been fully vaccinated against COVID 19 having taken two doses each of COVID-19 vaccines.
“This represents 5.8 % of the total vaccine eligible persons of 18 years old and above in Solomon Islands.
“These 23,871 people have received a total of 47,742 doses from the 95,288 doses that had been administered so far,” Prime Minister Sogavare said.
According to the Prime Minister’s statement, the numbers are as follows;
- 17,735 of these people are from Honiara City and Guadalcanal province representing 11.4% of their combined target population.
- 3,308 are from Choiseul province representing 15.4 %their target population.
- 2,560 are from Western province representing 4.4 % of their target population, and
- 265 people from Malaita Outer Islands and 3 people from Temotu that had taken their vaccinations in Honiara.
Prime Minister Sogavare said it is expected that numbers are projected to increase for other provinces that have just commenced their rollouts in due course.
“A total of 47,546 other people had received their first dose representing 11.5% of total target persons eligible for the vaccine.
“To all of you that have received your first dose please ensure you go for your second dose on the date on your vaccination cards. If you cannot make that date you can go for your second dose up to 2 weeks after the date on your card for AstraZeneca and up to 1 week after the date on the card for Sinopharm,” Prime Minister Sogavare urged.
He revealed that it anticipated that by Friday 16th September vaccination rollout programs should reach every province in the country.
“I call on all citizens in all our provinces that are 18 years old and above to get vaccinated to protect yourself, your families, your communities, and your country.
“I thank and salute all provincial premiers, assembly members, provincial community leaders, church leaders, elders, frontliners, government workers, and workers in the NGOs and private sector and all eligible members of your families that have come out to get vaccinated.
“Your collective leadership and willingness to get vaccinated, says a lot about your commitment to protect our country from COVID-19. It has also contributed towards raising people’s confidence in taking the vaccine which has seen significant increases in uptake in the past weeks.
“Our COVID-19 vaccination program has improved over the past month, however we are still far behind the level we should be at to protect our country if the Delta variant of the COVID-19 reaches our country and our communities.
“To effectively protect our country from COVID-19 we must reach more than 80% of our total eligible population of 417, 327 people that have completed their two doses of COVID-19 vaccines. This is around 333, 862 people. As of now we only have 23,871 people who are fully vaccinated – only 5.7% of the total eligible population.
“We have a long way to go if we want to protect this country from COVID-19,” Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said.
