Health Minister Salutes the vaccinated and encourage unvaccinated to get vaccinated

“Allow me to express sincere thank you to each and every single one of our people whom have entrusted health and offered their arm up for vaccination to protect themselves, their families and our country against COVID-19. You truly have the heart for our country your families and children”.

Health Minister Hon. Dr Culwick Togamana made this statement when delivering key- note address at the launch of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine last week Thursday.

The Minister highlighted (As of Thursday last week) that 73,540 people have so far been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 with 47 percent having received their first dose. “So there we still need more people to come forward to get their COVID-19 vaccine jabs. Based on vaccines administered so far, 54 percent of vaccine eligible persons vaccinated against COVID-19 are males and 46 percent females. As such I would like to encourage our women and girls to come forward and get vaccinated”.

He added. “I know there are mothers out there who also wanted to get vaccinated but due to household commitments could not find time to make it to vaccination sites. Be assured that our health teams are working extremely hard to get these vaccines to your communities and closer to your homes, so once they arrive please do come forward”, said the Minister.

He also announced that second dose roll out for all provinces have commenced with most provinces now approaching 60 percent coverage of first dose. Having said that, the Minister shared the difficulties of health workers to reach remote and rural communities to encourage people to not miss the opportunity when vaccines arrive at their door steps.

“In one of our provinces, our vaccination team had to walk for hours, climb hills and cross rivers just to vaccinate less than 10 people. This reflects our commitment to protecting our country against the virus but all these efforts will not achieve its ultimate goal if there is no commitment from the people to come forward as well to get vaccinated.

He advised that waiting for community spread of the virus before rushing to get vaccinated will already be too late. “A community transmission will not take days or even weeks before the unvaccinated getting sick, hospitalized and die from COVID-19. This means any attempts to get vaccinated for protection against COVID-19 will already be late”.

The Minister calls for all persons 18 years and above to get vaccinated now with AstraZeneca and Sino pharm vaccines and children between 12 and less than 18 years including pregnant mothers especially those in Honiara for now to get vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.

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