On Sunday, the Ministry of Health took delivery of a shipment of 51,840 doses of Pfizer’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccine. And as from Wednesday 13 September, the Ministry of Health started administering them to people at risk. This is being done at vaccination centres from 9am to 3pm on weekdays and from 9am to 11.30am on Saturdays.
In a press release, the Ministry of Health announced that priority is given to people aged 75 and over, as well as those suffering from co-morbidities and certain illnesses, such as renal failure, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, immunocompromised patients, people with Down’s syndrome and pregnant women.
The vaccination centres that will be operational include the Mediclinic in Floréal, the Octave Wiehe auditorium in Réduit and several hospitals, including Jeetoo in Port-Louis, SSRN in Pamplemousses, Dr Bruno Cheong in Flacq, Nehru in Rose-Belle and Victoria in Candos.
51,840 doses of Pfizer Bivalent vaccine arrived in Mauritius yesterday afternoon. The vaccine was donated by the US government through the Covax/Gavi Alliance initiative and the World Health Organisation.The Minister of Health, Kailesh Jagutpal, was present at the airport to receive the shipment.
He pointed out that these vaccines are better suited to the new variants of Covid-19. He also pointed out that the majority of Mauritians were vaccinated around two years ago. Vaccine immunity is therefore starting to decline. But since Covid-19 is still present, it is essential to protect yourself, he said. “Most Mauritians were vaccinated about two years ago and their immunity has started to decline”, said Minister Jagutpal
The Minister of Health also announced that a request had been made for 5,000 doses of the Covid-19 paediatric vaccine. To date, the vaccination campaign for children aged 5 to 11 has failed to get off the ground. Of the 91,000 children concerned, only 23,521 have received two doses of a vaccine, even though almost 200,000 vaccines were needed for their immunisation.
