In spite of a slight increase in vaccination coverage among senior citizens in Latvia, 165 000 of elderly persons still have not received their first Covid-19 vaccine shot, said Latvian National Health Service Vaccination Project Office lead Eva Juhņēviča in an interview to TV3 programme 900 seconds.
She said currently a lot of effort is put into increasing initial vaccination for Covid-19 among residents aged 60 years or older.
«We can feel returns from initiatives from general practitioners, municipalities and NGOs to reach out to seniors and convince them to vaccinate. This is why it is important to reorganize the vaccination process and put more emphasis on mobile vaccination efforts. This would allow vaccinating seniors close to their homes,» adds Juhņēviča.
According to her, general practitioners have contributed the most to the process. They were asked to reach out to their patients and personally urge pensioners to vaccinate.
«We can see pensioners are prepared to vaccinate,» adds Juhņēviča.
As previously reported, residents 60 years or older made up 19% of all recipients of first Covid-19 vaccine jabs at the start of October. By the end of the month this percentage reached 33%, says the head of the Vaccination Project Office.
When asked if the reduced percentage of first dose recipients when compared to recipients of the second dose does not raise concerns, the head of the office notes that the current priority is increasing vaccination coverage among seniors.
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Currently 60% to 64% of residents in the 60 years age group have received at least the first dose, which indicates stable increase of vaccination rates among seniors.
As previously reported, this week’s Covid-19 vaccination rate in Latvia did not differ much from last week. However, the rate at which residents receive their initial vaccination continues dropping every day, according to estimates from LETA based on data from the National Health Service.
On Monday last week 78.72% of all Covid-19 vaccine recipients were people who received the first dose. After that the percentage of recipients of first time vaccine recipients continued to reduce with every passing day. This trend continued this week as well. 53.11% of the residents who were vaccinated on Tuesday received the first dose, other residents received the second or booster shot, according to data from the service.
165 000 seniors in Latvia still have not been vaccinated for Covid-19
