Country starts vaccination for children and adolescents and third dose this Thursday

The announcement was made by Sílvia Lutucuta during the update of the presidential decree to prevent and combat covid-19.

According to the minister, children and adolescents between 12 and 17 years old will start to be vaccinated, noting that there are enough vaccines to vaccinate the target population, 15.7 million.

For citizens who took the second dose of the vaccine for more than six months, the minister informed that from this time on, immunity begins to decrease, and for this reason it is necessary to reinforce the vaccination of the already immunized population.

Sílvia Lutucuta appealed to all citizens who have not yet been vaccinated and those who have not completed the second dose to go to the vaccination posts.

"The vaccine saves lives, is free and safe. We have been able to partially control this third wave at the expense of vaccination", said the head of the Health portfolio, stressing that young people are highly mobile, as well as adolescents and children .

According to the minister, it has already been more than proven that this group of children and adolescents are major transmitters of the disease and most often asymptomatic, a reason for parents, family members and guardians to take them to vaccination posts.

Angola has so far administered 10.5 million doses, of which 7.2 million are the first dose, corresponding to a coverage of 46.14 percent, and 3.5 million with the two doses, a coverage of 22. 7 percent in those over 18 years of age.

The government official highlighted that the country is in the final administration of the third wave, with a drop in the number of cases, but with a slight increase in recent days.

"In recent weeks, and especially in Luanda, the rate of transferability rose from 0.58 percent to 1.2 percent, and in the other provinces this rate remains stable. This trend worries us and we are investigating the behavior of the virus", he stressed.

The minister informed that since November 16, 53 positive cases have been detected at the airport from South Africa, Russia, Turkey, Democratic Republic of Congo, United Kingdom, Nigeria, United States of America and Lesotho, all of which are in institutional isolation.

In the last two weeks, there has been an increase in the number of cases, from an average number of 115 cases to 145, and the daily average has risen from 14 to 20 cases, continuing the concern with the new Omicron variant and special attention to countries around Angola.

Covid-19 has caused at least 5,311,914 deaths worldwide, among more than 269 million infections by the new coronavirus registered since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the most recent report by the Agence France-Presse.