By Staff Writer
The COVID-19 vaccination opened officially to the general public this morning at at the TTM Hospital and in selected locations in central Apia and in the villages of the Vaimauga District.
Earlier anxieties by the vaccination organisers of a major rush to be injected before the doses run out did not happen.
Many, however, did turn up early in the morning when the clinics opened up.
“We’ve had about a 100 people already since we started this morning,” one of the vaccination officials confirmed at the Nurses Training Centre clinic.
Beds were set up inside the clinic for people to lie on after injections if they should feel any dizziness or other abnormal body reactions to the vaccine.
People were required to fill out forms of consent before any vaccination injection is carried out.
They were also handed injection cards for confirmation of having received their first doses that are to be handed in when they turn up for their second and final dose.
The vaccination roll out is starting for the rest of this week from inside the heavily concentrated village populations of the Vaimauga District.
Health vaccination teams are strategically assigned on an east-west sweep from Lauli’i village east of Apia across to Alamagoto in the west.
More than 130,000 of the estimated 200,000 population are inside the vaccinated age group that starts from 18 years old and upwards.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca is the selected COVID-19 vaccine being rolled out in the first of two doses starting this week.
The second injection run is to follow in 8-12 weeks.
