Health authorities in American Samoa are highlighting the spread of Covid-19 in Fiji in an effort to encourage more residents to get fully vaccinated.
A boy laughs as he gets the Covid-19 vaccine in American Samoa, in June. Photo: Supplied / American Samoa Department of Health
Around 37,000 people are eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the US territory.
As of this week, 68.5 percent of those had received at least one of the shots and 60.6 percent were fully immunised.
The Health Department's chief epidemiologist Dr Aifili John Tufa highlighted the plight of Fiji, where community transmission of the Delta variant is soaring.
Epidemiologist Aifili Dr John Tufa Photo: RNZ Pacific / Monica Miller
He said compared to American Samoa the vaccination rate was lower in Fiji due to limited allocations of the vaccine by the World Health organisation.
"Fiji wants to vaccinate, they want vaccines there so they can vaccinate their people. But they can't, because of the allocations.
"But for us here in American Samoa, we have vaccines that are in our freezers that need to go into people's arms for protection."
He said a high vaccination rate was the difference between what's happening in Fiji and another country where the delta variant of the virus has spread - Israel.
"Eighty percent of (Israel's) population have now been vaccinated with one of the FDA-appoved or WHO-approved vaccines. And it's only those people who have not been vaccinated that are getting affected by the virus, that are getting sick and are getting into severe disease and dying from it."
Dr Tufa said herd immunity can only be achieved if 80 percent of a population is fully vaccinated.
