Getting vaccination right thing to stop third pandemic wave, says Parkop

THE right thing to do is to get vaccinated to prevent the third wave of the Covid-19 infections in Papua New Guinea, an official says.
During the launch of the National Capital District (NCD) Covid-19 vaccination programme yesterday, where 49 volunteers took the jab at the Rita Flynn centre, Governor Powes Parkop said there was no time for complacency as countries around the world like India were severely affected by the pandemic.
He said the pandemic had placed a lot of stress on systems in place, hence, transmission prevention was what this country needed and vaccine was the answer in addition to adhering to control measures.
“We need a lot of people to come forward and get the vaccine,” Parkop said.
“(Some) of us have been vaccinated and we are still here and will be still here working to build our economy.

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NCD health authority Covid-19 coordinator Dr Steven Yennie said 4,000 doses of the vaccine was allocated to NCD but since the population was big, proposals were made to for more vaccines.
He said three teams had been trained and advocacy work had been set for the three districts.
Dr Yennie said the vaccine had an expiration date, hence, work had to be done within two months so good advocacy and the right message to help the public understand the importance of the vaccination was the way forward.
“Our focus is basically to complement what ISOS is doing (at the National Football Stadium),” he said.
“Industries can come here as well, so let’s get the business continue to operate. With the frontline health workers, there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy so more advocacy needs to be done to convince them to get vaccinated.
“There are 532 within NCDHA and our vaccine uptake is very low, about 10 per cent (only around 50 have been vaccinated).
“Getting the vaccine is voluntary but looking at the age and comorbidities, staff have to make their own choice.
“The health facility is not safe for the staff because we deal with patients every day. That’s a big challenge for us and we are trying to make sure every staff is vaccinated to be able to do their job.”
Rita Flynn will be open from Monday to Saturday from 9am to 4pm and run for three weeks where health workers and other essential workers that deal with the people can go for vaccination.

TheNational / PNGHealthNews
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