Covid-19 vaccination coverage in Phalanxay district, Savannakhet remains low with those given all recommended doses representing only 42.23% of population, according to local officials.

The low vaccine coverage has been attributed to several difficulties, including vaccine hesitancy with some misled by vaccine disinformation, poor awareness among target groups and imprecise number of target groups.

“Right now, our district has developed forms for vaccination centres, and village authorities to use to collect data of target groups who are currently residing in the district or in each village, sorting out who are vaccinated or unvaccinated so that we will know the exact number of target groups as we have found that the number of target groups in Phalanxay and other districts has been proved to be imprecise and this is one of reasons why we have failed to achieve a high Covid-19 vaccination coverage,” said Head of Phalanxay District Health Office Dr Somboun Pongphimkham on Jul 13.

Since March 11, 2021, over 25,500 out of 46,100 people in the district have been vaccinated with first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, representing 55.32% of population in the district. Meanwhile 19,231 (42.23%) have been given all recommended doses with 6,309(13.7%) given third dose and only 485 (1.02%) vaccinated with fourth dose.

Low coverage has been also blamed on inadequate provision of medial workers, medical equipment, and financial support as well as communication devices for Covid-19 vaccination advocacy campaign.

As of Jul 11, more than 5.85 million people across the country have been vaccinated with at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccinated represent 79.8% of population in the country.

Meanwhile 5.17 million, equivalent to 70.5%, have been given all recommended doses.

The Lao government has an ambitious plan to increase Covid-19 vaccination coverage to 80% of population of the country by the end of this year.

Source: Lao News Agency