Centre preparing campaign

THE National Control Centre (NCC) is preparing a nationwide vaccine media campaign after delivering 132,000 AstraZeneca coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines from the Covax facility to all provinces for distribution.
According to the Papua New Guinea weekly Covid-19 situational report number 70, for April 19 to 25, which was released on Tuesday, provinces have now developed training plans for their vaccination teams.
The vaccination of National Capital District essential frontline workers, with the initial 8,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from Australia, continues with 2,900 people vaccinated to date.
This week, the team will continue to provide training to vaccinators as well as training for health promotion staff.
The Covid-19 vaccine media campaign, including developing community-based approaches, together with dissemination of key campaign messages and tools, will be finalised this week.
This week, the risk communication and community engagement team is working on a strategy for international immunisation week with the communications approach being finalised to include mass media and community-based approaches.
The team will also continue to support advocacy efforts for vaccine safety with a focus on working with identified advocates and key influencers to disseminate messages and information.
Last week, the Covid-19 national hotline received 4,894 calls.
Of these, 55 (about one per cent) were health-related calls and 40 of these were referred to the rapid response team and the provincial health authorities.