Tonga will receive USD$5.5 million to help roll out its vaccination program, after the Asian Development Bank today, approved USD$18.9 million in grants to help four developing member countries in the Pacific roll out safe and effective vaccines against the coronavirus disease COVID-19.

The Pacific Islands Countries and their shares of the grants are:

• Samoa - $8 million,
• Tonga - $5.5 million,
• Tuvalu - $1.5 million and
• Vanuatu $3.9 million.

The ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa said these countries had incurred considerable costs in preventing COVID-19 transmission, and their health systems had been put under extreme pressure.

“These grants will provide a platform to introduce safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in these countries, strengthen health systems to receive and administer the vaccines, and raise community awareness about vaccination timetables.”

As of March 2021, ADB had committed more than $750 million to support Pacific countries respond to the pandemic.

Tonga launched its COVID-19 vaccination program on 15 April, and as of today, 26 April, 5,367 people have been vaccinated, and 26% of its supply of AstraZeneca -Oxford Vaccine has been used up.