Administration of Pfizer BioNTech vaccine to students starts today |10 September 2021

Dr Gedeon and Dr Henriette during the press update yesterday (Photos: Thomas Meriton)

Public Health Commissioner Dr Jude Gedeon has launched a special appeal to parents who have children between the ages of 12 to 17 years, to check if they have brought home the consent forms to receive the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19.

The call was made during the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 press update held yesterday afternoon at the Sheikh Khalifa diagnostic centre.

Also present was the director of the Seychelles Hospital, Dr Kenneth Henriette.

Dr Gedeon said that the rolling of the vaccine for this age group will start today for students at the National Institute of Health and Social Studies (NIHSS) and Seychelles Institute for Teacher Education (Site).

This will be followed, starting next week, with the vaccination of all secondary and post-secondary students in public and private schools.

For the public schools, the vaccination of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine will start on September 13 for all S5 students and it will be followed on September 14 for all S1 and S4 students and on September 15 for S2 and S3 students.

On September 16 and 17 the vaccination programme will be dedicated to private and post-secondary institutions.

He also noted that all out of school children will be vaccinated as from September 20 and the place of vaccination will be announced later.

As for students on Praslin and La Digue, the date for the vaccination programme will also be announced later.

Dr Gedeon called on parents who have not received the forms to either contact their children’s respective schools or the health centres to get the forms which have to be filled and returned, irrespective of their consent or not.

Dr Gedeon said that there will be no Sinopharm vaccination for adults next week to allow the health officials to conduct the Pfizer BioNTech vaccination of students.

He added that the there will be ten separate health teams for the vaccination programme on Mahé (8), Praslin (1) and La Digue (1).

Commenting on the vaccine as a booster dose, Dr Gedeon stated that scientists have found that six months after taking Covishield and Sinopharm vaccines, another jab can be taken as a third dose for continued protection against the virus.

He added that the recommended booster dose is one shot of the vaccine per person and a second dose maybe administered upon a medical request by a doctor.

Patrick Joubert