COVID-19 vaccine mobile unit to roll out from next week

Students across the island will be getting COVID-19 vaccines at school from next week, according to co-coordinator of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Programme Major David Clarke.

He made the disclosure although he declined to say how many students ages 12 and up are expected to get the jab through the Ministry of Health’s mobile vaccine unit.

Last month, Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw said the Ministry of Education would be partnering with the Ministry of Health and Wellness to facilitate a mobile unit visiting schools to vaccinate eligible students, and she appealed to parents to sign consent forms to allow their charges to get the jab.

Major Clarke told Barbados TODAY he now has a list of schools with children whose parents have signed those consent forms.

“I am now looking at the strategy to roll that out. We will definitely be starting by next week, but some of the schools have small numbers which I would just let the polyclinics do,” he said.

Meantime, he has renewed the call for Barbadians to come forward to get the jab.

He said while there has been an increase in the number of persons going to vaccination centres for their second boosters, not many people were showing up for first doses.

“In terms of people getting their first vaccine, it’s still a slow trickle every day. Not huge numbers, a tiny trickle of people turning up every day. I can tell you the centres at building No 2 at Harbour Road see probably between 100 and 150 persons coming for boosters, but I can tell you that doesn’t affect the first dose numbers which are very small,” he said.

Major Clarke also reminded persons who got their first and second doses more than six months ago that they should proceed to get their boosters.

There are 161, 931 persons in Barbados who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 152 255 persons have received both doses and are fully vaccinated.

Barbados has recorded 74 967 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, and as of Wednesday, 431 persons had died from the virus. anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb