The new target population of adults aged 18 and over for the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign is 618,173.
This, according to the Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong.
“Following the mop-up vaccination program for the first dose and the review of the target population, the Ministry of Health and Medical Services has updated its total target population of adults aged 18 and over for the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign,” he said.
“In the review which is routinely undertaken in mass vaccination programs, the ministry used the health zones generated profiling data for its target population to ensure that medical area targets are relevant to medical teams looking after the area.
“When calculating the national vaccination coverage as a percentage, the total adults vaccinated is divided by the total adult population. Therefore, the increase in the total number for the adult population (the denominator of the calculation) at the national level has reduced the percentage of vaccination coverage nationally by 4 per cent.
“At the subnational level, while in some places there was an increase in the denominator, especially in Rewa, Naitasiri, Nadroga and Ba, other areas like Nasinu and the maritime islands have seen a decrease.”
Dr Fong said as of Tuesday, a total of 589,301 adults in Fiji had received their first dose of the vaccine and 405,839 had received their second doses.
“Based on our updated total population of 618,173 people aged 18 and over (adults), the revised vaccination coverage rates are 95.3 per cent for one dose and 65.7 per cent for the two-dose coverage.”
