March 02, 2021
Iwi data could help vaccine roll outs
Associate Health Minister Peeni Henare says planning for the Covid vaccination roll out includes collecting more ethnic and iwi information.
Vaccination is continuing across the country for people working in managed isolation and quarantine facilities, border workers and frontline heath workers.
Port workers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch started getting their jabs last week, and yesterday a team from with Ngāti Ranginui administered the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to the first 28 workers at the Port of Tauranga.
As they become available vaccines will go to vulnerable populations and ultimately the wider community around June or July this year.
Mr Henare says it’s a great opportunity to learn more about how people respond to vaccination programmes.
"At the same time of the Covid vaccine roll out, very soon we will kick into the regular influenza roll out like we do every year as well as another measles vaccine roll out for our people so there is a heck of a lot of information across three vaccine roll outs and it is important that we capture it and iwi will be one of them," he says.
"Because of his role as Defence Minister he expects to get vaccinated early in stage two of the roll out, shortly after the Prime Minister.
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