Permanent Secretary for Health Doctor James Fong says with the presence of Omicron and the threat of new COVID variants, everyone must get at least 3 vaccine doses and have sustained protection.
Doctor Fong highlighted this when questioned by fijivillage on what is being done for majority of the people who are eligible but have not received their booster shots as we may have a situation where protection for them wanes within six months.
He says he is concerned about the number of people that are due but have not gotten their booster shots.
When questioned on why booster doses are still not mandatory, Dr Fong says he would rather that everybody just keeps on coming out of their own free will because they are convinced that it is useful.
The Permanent Secretary says they hope that we do not have to need mandatory action to attain the level of protection that we need.
He says one good thing was that when the booster shot program started, the uptake was very fast.
The Ministry of Health has confirmed that as of February 14th, 94,566 individuals have so far received Moderna booster doses and 60 individuals have received the Pfizer booster.
The Ministry also stated that for February, a further 175,558 have become eligible for booster doses.
