Pop-up Covid vaccination clinics are planned for mosques to boost uptake.
Jabs could start at three mosques next week if Hartlepool and Stockton Health GP Federation staff visits confirm they are “clinically appropriate”.
Stockton Council’s health and wellbeing board said it was having a “dialogue” with groups reluctant to have the jab.
This was helped by the town’s first Asian mayor “publicly having his vaccine and encouraging others to have it”, chairman Jim Beall said.
“I know there are other people in those communities encouraging uptake,” he said.
Mr Javed was seriously ill with Covid last year and has been a prominent campaigner for vaccine take-up.
He had appealed to imams and Islamic scholars to encourage vaccinations during the upcoming month of Ramadan, he said.
“Many people are thinking they can’t have a vaccine during the fast – but it will not break your fast if it’s going through your arm,” he said.
