Papua New Guinea's prime minister launched a nationwide coronavirus vaccine roll-out, hoping to quell a runaway outbreak and counter widespread public hesitancy about jabs, AFP reports.

James Marape said a batch of 100,000 vaccines had arrived in Papua New Guinea and would be distributed countrywide, as he urged sceptical health workers and the general public to get vaccinated.

“We want to reduce and prevent deaths of our people,” he said, launching the “Sleeves Up” campaign.

After weathering the initial stages of the pandemic, the country has recorded most of its 11,262 Covid-19 cases and 115 known deaths since February 2021. Only 93,000 tests have been carried out among a population of nine million, so the real number of infections is feared to be much higher.