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Essential workers, politicians, among first to receive jab

by Marlon Madden
4 min read
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Barbadians will be able to walk, drive or call for the coronavirus jab when the vaccination drive gathers pace, health authorities said Wednesday. But from Thursday, the first of about 20,000 frontline workers and Members of Parliament will be at the front of the queue.

There are to be five categories of vaccination candidates, according to the army major overseeing the campaign. The first category will consist of people who are COVID-19 negative and with no symptoms but further details are still be finalised.

Giving an outline of the vaccination process, which is expected to go into full swing on Monday, the programme’s coordinator, Major David Clarke of the Barbados Regiment, told a press briefing that the island’s nine polyclinics will be used as vaccination centres, with a team of up to nine people each, led by a senior public health sister.

Once the programme is in full swing, there will be some 27 teams across the island administering the vaccinations daily.

About 30 people today received their jabs in a test of the distribution system. They included University of the West Indies Cave Hill students involved in the islandwide coronavirus survey, Operation Seek and Save, public health officials and Barbados Defence Force (BDF) top brass. Co-coordinator of the vaccine programme Dr Elizabeth Ferdinand, Major Clarke and Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George were also among early takers of the vaccine.

In addition to parliamentarians, Clarke explained that the first category of people to receive the jab Thursday will include health and safety workers, police officers, airport personnel, immigration and customs officers, and workers at supermarkets, gas stations and hotels.

Major Clarke said: “We will be rolling out . . . with all of those frontline workers that are essential for the functioning of our economy. So we have asked all the organizations to actually present us the numbers of people in those organizations.

“So certainly in a day or two, we will be rolling out and we also have to look at the governance structure and we will be starting tomorrow with some of those people on the table of precedence . . . but we will certainly be starting tomorrow, maybe on a small scale but by Monday we will definitely be at full capacity.”

It was late Tuesday evening that Barbados received 100,000 doses of the double-dose Oxford AstraZeneca jab from the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, through an arrangement with the Indian government to inoculate 50,000 people in coming weeks.

In addition to the polyclinics, there will be vaccination centres in areas where there are no polyclinics, along with mobile teams and drive-thru points whose locations are to be determined based on population density, said Major Clarke.

“In terms of the drive-thru, as the programme ramps up we can have drive-thru stations at the Globe Cinema, the Grantley Adams International Airport, the Clock Tower by the Garrison, and as we get more we can add. We also have schools and other locations that we have made satellite vaccination centres,” he said.

He also explained that the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the BDF will handle their own vaccination process with the help of the Winston Scott Polyclinic.

Each vaccination team, he said, will be “managed by a public health sister and we may have two sisters in the team, a staff nurse or nursing assistant”.

“We will also have a medical doctor who is there to make sure that you are educated on the process and also to manage you,” Major Clake said, pointing out that there will be a mandatory 15-minutes wait after receiving the vaccine.

“We will also have a general worker sanitizing after every individual has been vaccinated and somebody to manage the flow of patients coming in as well as a person to sanitize you at the beginning,” the army doctor explained while giving an assurance that the vaccination teams have been adequately trained.

Once individuals receive their jab, their information will be entered into the SHARP App. They will receive a certificate and also receive an e-mail with the vaccination information which will also have the return date for the second jab, scheduled to be about four weeks later.

Adding that details of the other four categories of vaccine candidates are to be announced in hte coming days as Government ramps up its vaccination campaign messaging, Major Clarke said that information was still being fine-tuned

Government data show there are 21, 000 people over 85 years old and 44,000 over 75 years old in Barbados, he said.

“It is also important that we look at people who have medical issues such as chronic non-communicable diseases, and I gather from the medical professionals we have about 30 per cent of our population of those. So in terms of servicing all of these categories, we then have to make sure we service the ones who really need it to stop the transmission and make sure they don’t get extremely ill,” said  Major Clarke.

He further explained that the vaccination of the approximately 20,000 frontline workers is to be staggered so as to ensure that organizations could continue to function effectively on a daily basis.
(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)

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