The COVID-19 vaccination for children ages 5 to 11 began on Saturday at the National Cultural Centre tarmac, with some 153 children being inoculated.
This is according to the Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony, who on Monday described the response as "very good." A total of 26,400 children are expected to be immunised in a two-dose schedule.
Minister Anthony said, “We were able to vaccinate 153 children between the ages of five to eleven. We also did other vaccinations because the parents who accompanied the children, some of them got booster doses and so we did another 51 doses in addition to the specific age group of five to eleven.”
Meanwhile, the vaccination programme for this specific age group will commence in Regions Six (6), Five (5), Three (3) and Two (2) this week and will go into other regions in the new week.
According to Dr Anthony, the Health and Education Ministries have been collaborating to send out consent forms to parents in the other regions.
“So the schools where we have a higher percentage of response that is positive, we are going to go into those schools and start vaccination…We’ve also allocated vaccines to these regions and these have been sent up and there in the region ready to be used and persons in the region have been trained as well.” Dr Anthony said.
The Ministry last week received 52,000 doses of the paediatric vaccines and will be receiving another tranche through the COVAX facility.
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