BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN – Booster shots for adolescents ages 12-17 will be rolled out beginning April 16, the Ministry of Health announced Sunday.

The jabs will be available at all COVID-19 vaccination centres nationwide: the Indoor Stadium, Berakas; Jubli Emas Bunut Health Centre; Dewan Seri Kenangan, Tutong; Dewan Kemasyarakatan, Belalong; Suri Seri Begawan Hospital; and Panaga Health.

Parents will be able to book vaccination appointments via the BruHealth app starting April 15 at 12pm. At least three months should have lapsed since the child’s second dose.

More than 99 percent of adolescents — just over 40,000 children — have been double-dosed since the government kicked off its vaccination programme for teens in November last year.

The health ministry is also one week into its vaccination drive for children ages 5-11, with 5,668 doses administered so far – equivalent to 13.2 percent of that age group.

Weekly COVID numbers

Weekly case numbers continue to decline with 2,556 infections logged last week, down 44 percent from the previous week.

On average, 365 new infections were reported daily for the past week – that represents 8.6 percent of the peak. The highest 7-day rolling average was recorded on March 7 (4,213 infections).

Brunei has recorded 138,530 coronavirus infections to date. A total of 210 people have died with COVID, but the health ministry said only 42 percent of those were directly linked to the virus, while the rest had underlying health problems that ultimately caused their death.