Ministry sourcing vaccines for younger population

Health authorities have already made a move to secure doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages five to 11.

This was revealed by Chief Medical Officer, Dr Kenneth George who told Barbados TODAY the Ministry of Health and Wellness had already made attempts to get their hands on the highly sought after vaccines.

He said while the vaccine was already being used in the United States and Canada, the decision by the Ministry of Health and Wellness to try to secure the vaccines was only made after the green light was given for its use by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Dr George explained that after attempts to secure the vaccine through assistance from the United States had proved unsuccessful, Barbados reached out to CARICOM and the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) for help.

Yesterday, Trinidad’s Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh revealed that the ministry was currently in negotiations to also acquire the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

“The Ministry of Health and Wellness over eight weeks ago signalled its intentions to vaccinate persons between the ages of 5 to 12 years old. We have reached out initially to the USA who gave the kind donation of Pfizer vaccines and then we also reached out to CARICOM, because although the dose is one-third of the adult dose it’s a different formulation and actually the vaccine comes differently packaged so you can’t just give one-third of the adult dose to a child. The special vaccine has different additives also,” Dr George told Barbados TODAY in a telephone interview.

“The Ministry of Health has already put in several bids to have these vaccines made available to us. The WHO is usually fairly cautious and while the vaccines were approved first in the United States and then Canada, the WHO has only now considered the vaccines to be used in this population. We have made some progress in the international market and when the vaccines arrive I will certainly be the first to tell you that they are here.”

Dr George said with school set to reopen in less than a month, the Ministry of Health would soon be meeting with the Ministry of Education to discuss the necessary protocols to facilitate the restart of face-to-face classes.

He revealed that the percentage of vaccinated school children varied depending on the school.

“The vaccine response in children has been mixed. What I would say is that some schools have had close to 80 per cent of their school body vaccinated and in other schools it is about 40 per cent, so there is a lot of discrepancy between and among schools with respect to their vaccine rate.

“But as you know the Ministry of Health is going to be hosting and working with the Ministry of Education next week to try to put together the requirements from health with respect to the opening of schools on the date that has been announced which is February 21,” Dr George pointed out.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb