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Vaccination Rate in Municipal Markets now stands at 74%

The Ministry of Local Government is pleased to note remarkable progress with the joint effort of the Municipal Councils and the Market Vendors around the country, to reach 74% vaccination rate this week as compared to 67% last week.

Since the recent announcement of the „No Jab No Job’ policy, 74% or 3,829 of market vendors in the Municipal Markets have taken first dose of vaccination and approximately 21% have taken their second dose.

Four Municipal Markets namely Lami, Sigatoka, Valelevu and Korovou have achieved 100% vaccination rate for all its permanent market vendors, for the first dose. Furthermore, casual vendors, in five Municipal Markets (Savusavu, Tavua, Rakiraki, Sigatoka and Korovou), have also received 100% first dose of vaccination.

The Ministry would like to acknowledge the effort made by the Lami Market vendors to ensure that they are fully vaccinated.

However, the Ministry notes with concern that there are some markets where a large number of vendors have not taken their first vaccination dose despite extensive awareness raising on the need to vaccinate in order to sell in the markets. These markets include Lautoka, Labasa, Nadi, Ba, Nausori and Laqere markets. The Ministry is again urging these market vendors to get vaccinated to ensure the continuation of their livelihood safely for themselves as well for consumers.

In Lautoka, 200 vendors are not vaccinated of which 72 are permanent and 128 casual vendors.

In Labasa, 122 permanent and 15 casual vendors are not vaccinated as yet.

A total of 46 permanent vendors are not vaccinated in the Nadi Market and 35, which includes both permanent and casual vendors, in the Laqere Market. The majority of unvaccinated vendors are from the Nausori Market with 542 or 49.9% unvaccinated vendors. The Ministry urges the vendors at these Municipal Markets to get their first jab to be in compliance with the requirements under the national law.

From last week, it is worth noting that there is some progress in vaccination – a drop from 32% of unvaccinated vendors to 25.6% being recorded this week, that is 1,320 vendors are still not vaccinated as compared to 1599 reported last week.

Consequently, these vendors have been denied entry in accordance with Health and Safety at Work (General Workplace Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.

“The Ministry is pleased to see that more market vendors are now willing to get vaccinated. The Municipal Councils have been playing a vital role in raising awareness and ensuring that the market vendors understand the significance of the COVID 19 vaccine. There has been resistance by some vendors initially, however, after conducting vigorous awareness, more vendors are now getting vaccinated,” said the Minister for Local Government, Hon. Premila Kumar.

“To beat the system, some market vendors produced fake vaccination cards. These vendors have been warned and advised of the consequences of such actions” said Hon. Kumar.
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