With almost three thousand persons already receiving a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony today announced that the booster doses are now available for persons 18 years and over who are fully vaccinated.
Previously only persons 50 years and older and persons with comorbidities along with frontline health workers were eligible for the booster doses.
The Health Minister stated that six months after a person becomes fully vaccinated, the immunity of the vaccine starts to reduce, which exposes the person to contracting the virus.
He explained that persons who took the Sputnik vaccine and other vaccines except the Johnson and Johnson vaccine are entitled to a booster after three months, while someone who took the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine would be eligible for a booster dose, 52 days after their vaccination.
“As of today, we will be opening up booster doses to anyone 18-years and older you will now be able to get a booster dose. So those previous requirements that we have had where you had to be 50 years and older, we have now lowered that requirement to 18 years and older,” the Minister said during today’s COVID-19 update.
The Minister continues to encourage persons to get the COVID vaccine whether it’s the first, second, or booster dose explaining that the country has come out of a Delta surge and is now seeing fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths.
Additionally, in light of the new Omicron variant, the Health Minister said it is even more important to get vaccinated.
“We want to encourage people to come out and get vaccinated, this is the surest way of how they can protect themselves, from these numbers we can still see that there are a number of persons, who can get their first dose but hasn’t presented themselves as yet and we want to encourage them to do so. Make sure you get your first dose and then come back for your second dose,” the Minister said.
There is still a high number of persons who took the first dose of one of the Covid-19 vaccines and have not returned for their second dose.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login