Official: Lae seeing increase in vaccination interest

National

LAE is seeing an increase in vaccination interest, with an average of 200 people at one vaccination station over the last three days, an official says.
Morobe health authority chief executive officer Dr Kipas Binga said although this was reported only from the vaccination set-up at Angau Memorial Hospital, it was a positive sign. “There’s a big interest from the public in getting vaccine and our challenge now is to make it available when they come,” he said.
“We have to ensure that our stock supply is regular and staff sorted out in these coming weeks.
“Even Markham ran out of vaccines so they’ll be coming in to get their supply – this shows there’s interest in the districts as well.”
Dr Binga said Morobe brought in its third batch of AstraZeneca vaccine – about 1,500 vials – last week, which he expected to be used up by the end of this week.
He also confirmed also that the province rolled out the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, starting with about 18,000 doses in Lae before going into districts.
Dr Binga said a request has been made to Health Department for the Sinopharm vaccine for Morobe once it is made available. More than 15,000 have received their first dose of AstraZeneca and only 5,910 completed their second dose.
Dr Binga encouraged more people to get vaccinated to protect their families and communities.
“Vaccines promote your body to create specific immunity against specific diseases such as polio, measles and now Coronavirus (Covid-19).”