More Covid-19 vaccines coming soon for all provinces, says Dr Liko

THE AstraZeneca vaccinations will be rolled out to all provinces once PNG receives its first batch from the Covax facility arrangement this month, Health secretary Dr Osborne Liko says.
He said the 8,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated by the Australian government was specifically for health workers and other essential service providers.
The National Capital District has, so far, been the hardest hit by Covid-19 transmissions and deaths leading the national statistics.
Dr Liko said all frontline health workers and support workers in the provinces will be vaccinated this month.
Dr Liko, also Deputy Pandemic Controller, said this in response to provincial health authorities and hospitals requesting for Covid-19 vaccine and questions about the roll out of vaccines.
“Once we have the further supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccines, we will give out to other provinces,” he said.
He said 37 people were vaccinated on Tuesday and the vaccination of health workers commenced yesterday (which included 132 Port Moresby General Hospital staff).
Dr Liko said through the Covax facility arrangement, PNG was supposed to get 588,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in two shipments from the Serum Institute of India but due to a surge in the cases in India the vaccines had been diverted for their own population.
“We are hoping to get the first shipment of 288,000 doses from the Covax this month,” he said.
“We hope to have it forward to the second or third week of April and we will consider all our PHA hot spots (Western, Western Highlands, Eastern Highlands, Morobe, West Sepik and Autonomous Region of Bougainville).
Dr Liko said when the remaining 300,000 comes, all PHAs would be considered, including other workforce, the aging population and those with comorbidities.