Covid-19 vaccine roll out

The vaccines are provided by Japan.

Tonga’s Ministry of Health confirms that Japan provided 36,800 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to the kingdom via COVAX.

The ministry has planned to distribute 4000 doses as the first roll out to Ha’apai.

Japan’s Ambassador, Kensaku Munenaga was present at the Maama 'o Mamani Hall in Pangai for the launch of the vaccine roll-out.

On average 760 people are being vaccinated daily and 39% of the vaccination batch (28,000 doses) has been used with zero wastage reported.

The Ministry has 10 teams working on the vaccine rollout.

There are 5 larger teams of 14-16 staff and 4 small teams (3 mobile teams and 1 stationed at Vaiola NCD centre).

A total of 150 staff are dedicated to the national vaccination rollout

According to the Ministry, 11,958 people have been registered to date.

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The grants to Samoa (US$8 million), Tonga (US$5.5 million), Tuvalu (US$1.5 million), and Vanuatu (US$3.9 million) will support their COVID-19 vaccination programmes for a combined population of almost 600,000 people. The project is financed by ADB’s US$9 billion Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility launched in December 2020 to offer rapid and equitable vaccine-related support to ADB’s DMCs.

The vaccine rollout started on Wednesday following the arrival of 12,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last weekend.

Since the vaccine requires two doses, 6,000 front-line workers will get the first jabs.

But the government said this could not happen until people registered to get vaccinated.

With the absence of a national identification mechanism and a digital immunisation registry in Fiji, the government said the need to have a credible registration process and an internationally acceptable vaccine passport are paramount.

Medical authorities in New Zealand have already approved the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for use to immunise people 16 years and older.

"We'll be really looking to have conversations with our counterparts in the Pacific around what might be possible with some of those trickier vaccines so that we can see similar levels of protection provided in the Pacific at the same time as we might be seeing that in New Zealand," said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern said her government was also in discussions about how vaccine distribution will work in the Pacific.