With most of its eligible adult population covered, Fiji’s covid-19 vaccine rollout for teenagers is gaining pace.
The Health Ministry said 28,965 children aged 15 to 17 had received a first vaccine dose — and 3892 teenagers had received a second.
The rollout was recently extended to this age bracket after vaccination rates covered almost all of Fiji’s eligible adult population aged 18 and over — 95.9 percent of them have received their first vaccine dose, and 84.4 percent have had a second.
Daily reports on new cases of covid-19 in Fiji continue to show numbers are well down on the peak from late July.
The Health Ministry on Thursday reported 25 new covid cases, taking the total number of cases to date to almost 52,000.
Health Secretary Dr James Fong said in the past seven days, 285 cases had been reported, around two-thirds of which were in the central division.
But the rolling daily average is in the dozens, well down on the peak of late July when hundreds and sometimes over a thousand cases were reported.
Dr Fong said there had been 663 deaths due to covid, all but two of them in the outbreak that started in April.
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