A hotline set up to deal with questions about the Covid-19 vaccine had “technical issues” today, a Government spokeswoman said.

She explained: “At this time not all calls are being answered immediately.

“Some of the calls are going into the call queue and being routed to voicemail.”

The problem affected people trying to get through to option two on the Government’s vaccine hotline, 444-2498.

The spokeswoman asked residents to keep phoning because agents could answer calls that were not redirected to the queue.

The hotline also experienced problems last week. The spokeswoman said last Thursday that the vaccine hotline was experiencing technical problems “as a result of the volume of calls”.

She added then: “Callers may find themselves directed to voicemail or put in a queue without having their call answered.

“The Ministry of Health is working expeditiously to resolve this issue, requiring additional channel capacity to meet the current demand.”

The spokeswoman said on Friday: “The repairs to the vaccine hotline are being made early next week.

“We pinpointed the problem yesterday and will remedy as soon as technically possible.”