Ministry of Health starts mobile vaccinations in dense communities

Roving mass vaccinations against COVID-19 are to begin Thursday, as the Ministry of Health rolls out a campaign targeting densely-

populated communities, as the once rapid uptake of the jabs slowed to a trickle, its coordinator has announced.

The disclosure comes after a chorus of disapproval of mandatory vaccination that was driven by a vocal group led by some anti-vaxxers.

The National Vaccination Programme’s joint coordinator  Major David Clarke acknowledged lower vaccination rates coupled with significant hesitancy in being inoculated.

The total vaccination rate has hovered around 35 per cent for several weeks amid a surge of coronavirus infections said to be driven by the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Among the 12 high-density districts identified by Major Clarke are Deacons Farm, Bush Hall, the Pine Housing Area and New Orleans in St Michael; Silver Hill and Silver Sands, Christ Church; Orange Hill and Haynesville, St James and Maynards in St Peter.

Major Clarke said the vaccination drive will cover two districts per day starting with Deacons Farm and Silver Hill, followed on Friday by Pine Housing Area and Haynesville.

Ministry of Health vehicles were expected to go through the various areas on Wednesday putting residents on notice that mobile units would be stationed in their communities the following day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The jabs will be available to anyone over age 12 as the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm are to be made available.

Major Clarke told Barbados TODAY: “These areas were chosen because there is a concentration of people and where people may have families because you know we are doing school children.

“There may be people with a range of children and they may not be able to leave home with the children; so we are trying to make it more accessible by bringing the mobile units close to where people are.

“We would like the school children to come out and we would also like the adults to come out. So where you have a family with children over 12 and children under 12, but the parent can’t leave, we bring the bus close to them; it is right there in front of the house.”

Major Clarke said that fit-for-purpose buses would be stationed at strategic locations in the communities to administer the vaccines.

He explained: “We have been using the mobile units to do shut-ins; and whenever we go to do shut-ins and we see a group of people there, we have been doing them as well.

“So it’s not the first time we have been using the mobile units, but it is the first that we have targeted areas with population densities to get the parents and the young people to come out.”

At the height of the inoculation campaign’s initial stages, health care workers were administering about 4,000 vaccines per day but that this has now declined to around 1,000 per day.

“We want as many people to come out as possible,” the campaign coordinator said. “There are people who were in the ‘easy group’ that came out. Those that had to think about it are now slowly coming out.”

Health authorities say they need to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of the adult population in order to achieve herd immunity from COVID-19.

(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)