Jacinda Ardern announces free COVID-19 vaccination plan for New Zealand

New Zealand has ordered 15 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from four different pharmaceuticals, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday, December 17. In what she dubbed as the country’s "largest-ever immunization programme", the New Zealand government has reportedly secured 750,000 jabs from Pfizer, 5 million from Janssen,3.8 million from Oxford/AstraZeneca and 5.36 million from Novavax. New Zealand, which was one of the first countries in the world to declare itself free of the COVID-19 infection, has not authorised a vaccine as of now. 

Talking about the mass inoculation, Ardern said New Zealand would have to wait till the second quarter of the next year to get the vaccines. However, once the process starts healthcare workers and border officials would be prioritised. She also revealed that vaccines would be free of cost for every resident in the country.

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Vaccines for pacific

Ardern also stressed that not all vaccine jabs would be used in New Zealand. A proportion of it would be sent to pacific nations as a part of the government's vaccine 2021 plan. Earlier this year, New Zealand announced NZ $75 million to help pacific nations vaccinate their populations.

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Other nations lining up for COVID-19 jabs

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 17 said that all the nations in the Asia-pacific region are not guaranteed to receive early COVID-19 vaccinations and called the leaders to adopt a long-term strategy to handle the pandemic. 

WHO Regional Director Dr. Takeshi Kasai told reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta that developing the safe vaccine and its mass production are two different things. WHOs coordinator for essential medicines and health technologies also cautioned that some nations would be able to start COVID-19 vaccinations in the upcoming months, but the same can be pushed as far as mid or late 2021 for other countries.

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