WELLINGTON, May 18 (Xinhua) -- A significant COVID-19 workforce milestone has been reached, with 5,000 vaccinators completing specialized training to administer the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday.
"A huge amount of work has been going on behind the scenes to boost numbers of trained vaccinators and this is a milestone worth celebrating," Hipkins said. "This specialized online training has been vitally important in ensuring we have sufficient workforce ready as we continue to ramp up our COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
The Immunization Advisory Centre (IMAC) started running the training for the Pfizer vaccine in February and as of this week, 5,358 vaccinators have completed the program, he said.
So far, almost 2,000 vaccinators have been involved in actively immunizing people since the COVID-19 vaccine rollout started nearly three months ago, the minister said.
"Current modelling indicates we'll need around 1,600 full-time equivalent vaccinators when our vaccination rollout peaks later this year," he said, adding that not all of the people trained so far will be available to work full-time, so additional initiatives are also underway to further boost the pool of vaccinators. Enditem
