Results for Health

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide Tonga with a $5.5 million grant to support the rollout of safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19.

With only 5,000 to 6,000 of the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine remaining, people aged 30 years and over are now eligible to be vaccinated, health officials announced this morning. ‘Eua is receiving 2,000 of those doses and the rest will be available in Tongatapu for first come, first served. No date has been confirmed for inoculating the remainder of the population, due to a limited supply of vaccines worldwide.

Around 19,200 doses of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine arrived on an Air New Zealand cargo flight in Tonga this afternoon, confirmed Ministry of Health Acting CEO, Dr Reynold ‘Ofanoa. These are for the second doses of people who have been innocculated. So far, over 20,000 people in Tonga have received their first shots.

Plans for repatriated passengers to start paying for their quarantine starting on 28 July is underway, confirmed MEIDECC CEO Paula Ma’u today.

With only 60% of the first batch of Tonga's COVID-19 vaccines used as of this morning, 7 May, Tonga's Ministry of Health is extending the vaccination program to next week, 10-11 May at various venues. They confirmed that people from the outer islands who are currently in Tongatapu can get vaccinated here. Vaccinations are averaging over 900 per day.

A group of around 40 Tongans who returned from the United States via Fiji are being assisted financially by the Tongan Government, after their repatriation flight to Tonga was postponed, due to the rising COVID-19 community transmission there.

The Ministry of Health is urging people to get their COVID-19 AstraZeneca innoculations, while vaccination teams are out in communities in their final week up to May 8. To date, 10,903 people have been vaccinated in Tonga.

Globally, new COVID-19 cases increased again with nearly 5.7 million new cases reported last week, surpassing previous peaks, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) weekly COVID-19 update on April 25. For the third consecutive week, the South-East Asia region reported the highest relative increases in both case and death incidences.

Around 5,367 people have received their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to date, confirmed the Ministry of Health this morning, after the vaccination program was rolled out on 15-17 April to frontliners and then in the communities last week.