Yarrabah success in jabs for kids

AN INDIGENOUS community south of Cairns has revealed numbers of children turning up to get vaccinated is well above the national average.

Last Friday, at Yarrabah, the Gurriny Yealamucka Health Services Aboriginal Corporation director of clinical services Jason King said the numbers of children who had turned up to get jab since they began the vaccination rollout for the five-to-11-year-old children’s service last Monday was very positive.

“We have vaccinated over 19 per cent of eligible fiveto-11-year-old community members,” Dr King said.

“Currently we are sitting well above the national rollout figures.”

Dr King said many adults were encouraged to get the vaccination when they brought their children to get the jab.

“One major positive byproduct of our children’s vaccination rollout has been the additional vaccinations we have done on family members, due their second shot or boosters,” he said.

“The heightened awareness of the need for vaccination has led to an increase in activity for all our teams.”

Dr King said the recent jump in Covid cases at the community was very concerning. “Of major concern for us is the rapid spread of Covid, along with the number of households affected by positive cases,” he said.

“When you’re talking about 75 cases over 30 households, that’s nearly 10 per cent of households in Yarrabah in the span of four days.”

Dr King said living conditions in Yarrabah with overcrowding and poor health did not help.

“That means it requires more effort to monitor and extra support for those households,” he said.