266,436 people have received the first dose of AstraZeneca while 32,766 Fijians are now fully vaccinated

266,436 people have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, AstraZeneca while 32,766 Fijians are now fully vaccinated.

While speaking on the fijivillage Straight Talk With Vijay Narayan, Head of the Vaccination Taskforce, Doctor Rachel Devi says 70,000 doses arrived from Australia last week and they anticipate another 65,000 doses to come in.

Doctor Devi says they are also making arrangements for vaccines to start arriving from New Zealand.

Vaccinations have also started in Vanua Levu and Doctor Devi advises everyone to ensure that your vaccination cards are stamped when you get the jabs after some people in Savusavu said they got their jabs however their cards were not stamped. She advises these people to go to the nearest vaccination centre as the information can be checked on the digitalFIJI platform and your card can be stamped.

Doctor Devi says the vaccine supply and rollout is progressing well, and she is calling on every eligible Fijian to come forward and get vaccinated.

She says on an average they have seen between 30,000 to 70,000 vaccines being administered in a week.

The target is to get 587,641 Fijians fully vaccinated which will ensure that our country moves forward.

You can watch the Straight Talk interview at 8am tomorrow on our website, facebook page and youtube channel, fijivillage.

Meanwhile Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says in the last three days, they have deployed 14,730 doses.

The Rewa and Nausori medical subdivision and the Ba medical subdivision are leading the way in terms of vaccine coverage with 70 percent and 81 percent of their target populations having received at least one dose of the vaccine, respectively.

He also highlighted that there is a 30 year old woman in the Intensive Care Unit right now suffering from a severe case of COVID-19.

Doctor Fong says don’t think being young makes you immune.

He says the highly contagious Delta variant present in Fiji has been described as the “fittest and the fastest” variant in the world.

Doctor Fong says anyone can be seriously impacted by this virus and this variant.

He says if you won’t respect those rules for yourselves, please do it for those most vulnerable.

The Permanent Secretary says one thing that deeply concerns him and his teams is the high rate of Fijians living with non communicable diseases.

He says these medical conditions like diabetes and hypertension contribute to higher rates of mortality from COVID-19.

Doctor Fong says until all of these Fijians are fully-vaccinated, we have to take extreme precautions to protect them, especially those living within areas of concern.

To make sure these Fijians continue to access life-sustaining medication, the Health Ministry has established a telehealth for Fijians living with non-communicable diseases that will open for the Western and Central divisions from next Monday and be available Monday through Friday from 9am until 4pm. The number is 165. If you need access to your NCD treatment medication, please call the number from next Monday.

He says they will arrange for you to be able to pick your medication up from safe points or have them delivered by mobile teams if you are living in an area under a targeted containment programme.

The helpline will be monitored and evaluated for calls received to ensure assistance is completed, all the way through to the delivery of the medication.

Please wear masks, maintain a physical distance of two metres, and make sure to wash your hands often and thoroughly. This will dramatically reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19.

Also get vaccinated when the teams come to your area.