The Bhutanese Leading the way.
A total of 475,651 eligible population was vaccinated across the country as of April 12, 2021 where around 47 percent are female and 53 percent are male. Till date, around 94 percent of the eligible population are vaccinated.
The oldest person to be vaccinated was 104 years old and 18 year olds were the youngest. Almost 30 percent of the people vaccinated are within the age categories of 18 years to 44 years old, and of that, almost 100,000 people with comorbidities got vaccinated. Majority of them have blood pressure.
Around 42 percent of the people with comorbidities indicated that they have high blood pressure, followed by 32 percent who has diabetes and there are also people undergoing chemotherapy and people who are diagnosed with severe liver disease, kidney diseases and few other chronic diseases as well.
Health Minister Dasho Dechen Wangmo said the vaccine campaign was fairly a successful program beyond their expectation. This vaccination campaign is not just about taking the shots in the arms but it is a sense of purpose that each one is embracing to protect the country and people.
All the efforts has been geared towards covering 100 percent of the eligible population but looking at the numbers some percent is falling short and thus in this final stretched the ministry would like to reach out to those who have not vaccinated yet.
Throughout the campaign period, the ministry has documented around 8,571 adverse events from which majority are headache, fever, and nausea. The National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NI-TAG) team has followed up everybody who had experienced the adverse events, and now every individual have recovered from it and are doing well. The minister said the NI-TAG team has monitored very extensively and has put in a lot of effort and time.
Of the severe cases, there were a total of 35 serious adverse reactions, from which only one had severe allergic reaction or anaphylactic shock and that was also fairly managed by the medical team. So all 35 individuals who have reported serious adverse events have recovered and are back home.
In terms of managing severe adverse events, a set of good doctors were deployed.
The foreign minister is working on seeking the second dose of vaccine and the ministry will inform the nation on the modality in which the second dose is to roll out. The ministry of health is also working closely with the foreign ministry and the Prime minister’s office to look at sourcing of other vaccines as well that will cover the young age group to increase herd immunity in the population.
