CMO says more have to be vaccinated before any booster shots

Before the Ministry of Health even contemplates giving booster shots to fully vaccinated persons, a much larger number of Barbadians first have to receive their first and second doses.

That is according to Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George who has explained that with COVID-19 vaccines still hard to come by for small countries like Barbados it would make no sense giving persons a third shot when there were still thousands of Barbadians yet to receive their first jab.

Both the US and the UK are moving towards administering booster shots to help in the fight against COVID-19. That third shot is said to be especially critical for people who are immunocompromised.

But in an interview with Barbados TODAY, Dr George said they were simply not enough persons fully vaccinated yet to consider giving booster shots.

He revealed that the additional 30,000 doses of AstraZeneca expected to arrive next week, as well as the remaining Sinopharm and Pfizer doses would be used to give persons their first and second doses.

“From a public health point of view the position of the Ministry of Health is to make sure that every Barbadian is given the opportunity to be vaccinated with two doses; either Sinopharm, Pfizer or AstraZeneca. That is the first public health good guidance.

“The issue of boosters we are aware of in the Ministry of Health. It makes no sense looking at boosters when we have so much more of our population to be vaccinated. Please recall that vaccines are not in tremendous supply…” Dr George noted.

He further explained that larger countries like the UK and US were in a better position to provide booster shots to their citizens because of the large supply of vaccines they were able to source.

Dr George said Barbados was not as fortunate and therefore, health authorities had to be extremely cautious in the manner in which they utilize those vaccines.

“I wouldn’t like the issues of boosters to get ahead of ourselves until we have more of our population vaccinated with at least two doses. Boosters are like icing on the cake and the challenge is that first world countries are able to use boosters in their population because they have an excess vaccine supply. With respect to Barbados I wouldn’t like us to go down this route, not just yet, when we have persons who are still to be vaccinated,” he said.
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)