By Staff Writer
The Ministry of Health is on a desperate race to vaccinate everyone before the date of use expires on doses stored in stock by the end of November.
The vaccination roll out is in two stages with an overall eligible population target of 130,000 people.
The vaccination run for the first stage is up to 90,000 people inoculated already with roughly 4,000 still left to go.
The second run has roughly 90,000 people still left to go and this is where the urgent push is needed to administer all the stock of vaccine before they expire.
The rollout went into a door-to-door injection programme with health teams visiting families the same as it was done for the measles epidemic and it worked.
“But it has slowed down to only a few thousand in the past few weeks with our teams turning up and people were not at home,” Director General of Health, Leausa Take Naseri puzzled.
Safata on the south side of Upolu Island has been singled out as one of the lowest turnout rates in the roll out programme so far and the health workers are not sure why.
Director General Leausa is anxious to speed up the fully vaccinated numbers with the pressure of new pandemic virus variants mounting all around Samoa.
Infection numbers are surging in nearby neighbours New Zealand and Fiji where community spread is a major concern.
Recent reports of Samoans infected by the virus in Fiji poses added health security worries for the Ministry of Health.
“ Samoa is surrounded by neighbours struggling to control the virus spread and we are very mindful of the risks for us.
“Our best protection is to make sure our eligible population are fully vaccinated with all their two injections.
“We know of cases in Fiji were people infected by the virus recover quickly after they have received all their required two doses.”
Earlier plans to ease up on border travels screeched to a halt just last week when a scheduled repatriation flight from New Zealand on the 26 of August was canceled.
No new date has been set to continue these flights flying in people to Samoa.
The Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa also indicated it may be a while before these inbound passenger flights are looked into again.
Samoa remains one of the few countries in the island region still free from the reach of the pandemic virus.