The Solomon Islands government is committing the majority of its first shipment of vaccines to protecting communities living along the border with Papua New Guinea.
The larger Melanesian neighbour is struggling with a serious community outbreak of Covid-19 with 60 dead and official case numbers in the thousands and climbing.
Health authorities in Honiara started vaccinating frontline health workers last week after receiving the first shipment of 24,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Dr Yogesh Choudhri Photo: Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce and Industry
"So out of the 24,000 doses our plan is to use 7000 doses in Honiara and 17,000 doses in our western border. It's because of the evolving situation in Papua New Guinea," said Yogesh Choudhri.
Dr Choudhri said as far as the rollout is concerned there has been some hesitancy within the target group of frontline healthworkers.
"Perceptions, apprehension and hesitancy is there. There is no denying it. So what we are doing is our health promotion team is going to each ministry and we are doing sessions with the ministry, so the uptake was very positive."
At the same time he said they were wary of over-selling the vaccines.
"Because we still only have 7000 doses for Honiara. So going full-fledged [on promotions] has also got its own disadvantages."
Solomon Islands was expecting to receive more than 80,000 more doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the global covax facility by June.
However, Yogesh Choudhri says this is no longer looking feasible and they are looking to get more vaccines through bilateral arrangements.
"We will be receiving 50,000 doses from PRC, China in the first week of April or I guess the right date is 11 April," said Dr Choudhri.
The 50,000 doses which will be arriving from China are the Sinopharm vaccine which has yet to be approved by the World Health Organisation.
Dr Choudhri says they will not be stored and only used if approved by WHO.
"But we are expecting that the WHO approval should come within the first week of April," he said.
The Solomon Islands government is also in talks with the government of India to supply several hundred thousand doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
Meanwhile community awareness is already underway in the western part of the country in preparation for the vaccination drive roll out next week.
