Pregnant women

The plan is to start rolling out the Pfizer vaccine after its arrival on 20 October, in schools around Tonga. Young people with disabilities will also be vaccinated.

Town Officers and church groups in each suburb or area will assist health teams to also reach out to families with young children who are not registered at schools.

To date, out of 63,128 people aged 18 years and over, 50,001 people have received their first dose of the Astra Zeneca vaccines, while 30,953 have received their second doses.

The Government also confirmed 250 new cases for the 24 hours to 8am yesterday.

Thirteen of the new cases are on the outer island of Kadavu and three patients are pregnant women.

Permanent Secretary of Health Dr James Fong said, "This means there are now 270 active cases of Covid-19 in Kadavu," he said. "All these individuals have been isolated."

Fiji now has 16,267 active cases. There were 1102 recoveries.

The death toll is at 505, which 503 of these are from the latest outbreak that began in April, 2021.

The Ministry of Health CEO Dr Siale 'Akau'ola told local media that if there are pregnant mothers who wished to be vaccinated with AstraZeneca vaccines now, they won't be turned away.

Tonga's vulnerability to impacts of COVID-19 infection in terms of non-communicable disease risk factors remains high.

Dr 'Akau'ola said that combining these two risks, make the risk for an unvaccinated pregnant woman extremely high.

According to RNZI, the latest report from Department of Health epidemiologist Scott Anesi shows there are now 654 suspectedcases and 23 confirmed cases of Zika.

The worst hit area is the Ituau district with 16 percent of the population suspected to have the virus.

Teams from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with the Department of Health in response, prevention and the distribution of Zika kits to pregnant mothers.

Estimates of depression rates during pregnancy vary between 5.5 percent to 33.1 percent -- a wide range that indicates more research is needed on the issue.