‘Overwhelming response’ as Pfizer jab rolled out

The National Vaccination Programme reported overwhelming demand for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, with scores of people having to return at a later date for their jab.

The Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA jab, currently the leading drug on the world market in the fight to prevent the spread of the virus, was rolled out at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus.

What began as an exercise to inoculate an initial 100 UWI staff members and students attracted in excess of 300 people who were eager to receive their first dose of the vaccine during the two-hour exercise.

The jabs used were from a gift of 70 200 doses which Barbados received from the United States government last Friday.

“We are having an overwhelming response at The University of the West Indies,” Co-coordinator of the National Vaccination Programme Major David Clarke told Barbados TODAY.

“The Vice Principal Professor Winston Moore is extremely overjoyed. There is a big smile under his mask to the number of students we had,”  he added in providing an update on the day’s proceedings. “It was so overwhelming that we actually have to continue it on Saturday because we did not get to finish.”

A total of 200 students were inoculated at the university on Thursday, with another 100 so far registered for Saturday’s session, officials said.

The vaccination campaign returns to the Cave Hill Campus to administer the first dose of the Pfizer and China-made Sinopharm vaccines to UWI staff and students only.

All other vaccination sites are open to members of the public, the Ministry of Health said.

So far, 101 370 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, and 87 710 people have received their second dose, and are therefore considered fully vaccinated.

This means that some 13 660 are still to receive second doses. Barbados TODAY understands that roughly 8 000 of this number are those who received first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine several weeks ago and are due for their second.

People who take the AstraZeneca jab are able to wait up to 12 weeks before getting their second dose. Therefore, Individuals who received their first shot when the inoculations started in mid-February and closed on March 26, should have received their second dose by mid-June.

The second phase of first doses of AstraZeneca started in April when the island received another shipment of the vaccines.

Major Clarke was not in a position to say if individuals from the very first phase were still to get second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but told Barbados TODAY he was encouraging all those who got their first shot to get a second dose of the vaccine this month.

He said: “Any person who has had their vaccine more than eight weeks, they can come forward and get their second dose at any of the sites. I encourage them to come between this week and next week. I would like for us to get through all the AstraZeneca second doses by August 28.”

A similar plea was made by Co-coordinator of the National Vaccination Programme Dr Elizabeth Ferdinand.

“The people who need to come for their second dose of AstraZeneca, we need to get those people up right away so that they can finish the course and be fully vaccinated,” she urged, while encouraging those who want to take the Sinopharm or Pfizer vaccines to register and do so.

Expressing surprise at the overwhelming turnout at the UWI site, Dr Ferdinand said that while both vaccines were taken to the site, there were only requests for the Pfizer jab.

A growing number of countries are looking at switching to different COVID-19 vaccines for second doses.

In one such country, Denmark, the State Serum Institute reported earlier this month that combining AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 jab with a second dose from either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna’s jab provides “good protection”.

Currently, Barbados does not offer a mix of vaccines. (MM)