BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Dec 7 (NNN-ANN) – Brunei began the administration of second dose of COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12 to 17 yesterday.
According to the Minister of Health, Haji Mohd Isham, the youngsters should have no quarantine orders or self-isolation notices. If they recently recovered from COVID-19, they should wait no less than four weeks, after recovery.
The minister also urged parents and guardians, to ensure that the young people receive their second dose according to schedule.
As for booster shots, the minister said, the booster jabs are at first administered to frontliners, and recently, expanded to those aged 50 and above. The vaccine supply for booster shots should be sufficient, if deliveries are received according to plan, the minister said.
Brunei said, COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, China’s Sinopharm, and Johnson and Johnson would be administered in the country.
During the first phase of Brunei’s COVID-19 National Vaccination Programme, that began in Apr, frontliners were administered mostly with China’s Sinopharm vaccine because of its earlier arrival and a shorter interval between two doses.
Brunei kicked off a COVID-19 vaccine immunity study last month, on 3,000 individuals, who have completed their full vaccination with Sinopharm, AstraZeneca or Moderna.
There will also be a follow-up study after the booster shots have been administered, to assess the effects of the additional dose on the immune system.
The latest official statistics showed that as of Sunday, a total of 404,451 individuals had received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, under the National Vaccination Programme, which is 94.1 percent of the total population.
Meanwhile, 352,186 individuals had completed the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, which is 81.9 percent of the total population.
The country reported 16 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday, bringing the total tally to 15,202, with 100 deaths.
All the newly recorded cases were local infections.
While the source of six local infections was still under investigation, three new clusters have been detected and three clusters were closed, with no new cases in the clusters for 28 days. Currently the number of active clusters stands at 111, according to the health ministry.
There are a total of 14,837 recoveries reported from the pandemic, and 265 active cases still being treated and monitored in the country.– NNN-ANN
