The Morobe Provincial Health Authority is preparing to roll out the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.
The province is continuing the administration of AstraZeneca vaccine while a new batch of Johnson & Johnson vaccines, developed by Belgian firm, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, are scheduled for next week.
Chief executive officer of the Morobe Provincial Health Authority, Dr Kipas Binga, said staff training will be conducted this week before J&J is rolled out.
“Remember, the J&J is just one shot while the AstraZeneca is two shots,” he stated.
“Some senior citizens also opted for Sinopharm so we have already made a request – through our officers – to the Department of Health to see if they can release maybe about 200 doses of Sinopharm and we’ll see how this goes.”
So far, over 13,000 residents have gotten their first AZ jab while 5,000 have completed their dosage.
Dr Binga said they recorded about six COVID-19 deaths in the past two weeks, urging residents to go to the nearest clinic and get vaccinated.
Active vaccination sites in the province include the Bulolo Health Centre, Wampar Health Centre in the Huon Gulf district, the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital and Buimo Clinic.
Dr Binga further said the confirmation of the Delta variant does not happen in-country, hence the turnaround time is slow. He added that from the samples that were recently sent down, two were confirmed to have the predominant COVID-19 strain.
On the other hand, the CEO said Morobe has a sufficient supply of oxygen. He gave the assurance that they have funding available to purchase them at BOC when the need arises.
“It’s ok, it’s just the logistics bit of it – moving from one point to the other – is the issue so we’re looking at that on how to improve,” he stated.
“The current arrangement with LD Logistics is to bring the oxygen from that side [market area] to the hospital and not to the COVID centre [stadium]. So when they come here, it’s from here moving down – sometimes if it’s in the night or something, it becomes an issue for us.”
Because of this, the health authority is looking at relocating the COVID-19 ward at the Sir Ignatius Kilage indoor complex to ANGAU.