40,000 doses for workers

MORE than 40,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been given to frontline workers around the country, a health official says.
According to Dr Garry Nou of the Covid-19 National Control Centre, 40,600 doses were given out to provinces with 6,000 doses given to health workers and 33,000 given to other frontline essential workers.
“All adults in Papua New Guinea are eligible to take the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine,” he said.
Dr Nou said the vaccine was given in two doses in order for individual to be fully vaccinated.
He said if a person tested positive for the Covid-19, they would need to recover first before they could get vaccinated.
Covid-19 response coordinator Dr Kerri Kelly said the vaccine rollout to the provinces had taken time but was underway.
She said the rollout was progressing well, adding that all health workers and essential workers would be given priority.
Dr Kelly said once the country had more consignments of the vaccine, all citizens over 16 would be eligible for vaccination.