The Ministry of Health and Wellness has indicated that, despite a low return rate among citizens for booster shots and less than a million people fully vaccinated, it will continue pushing ahead with its islandwide COVID-19 vaccination programme.

For more than two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has plagued the island’s shores, creating a new normal of mask-wearing, constant sanitisation and, for some time, social distancing.

As the virus continued to spread, vaccines became available to ease the alarming rate at which citizens were contracting COVID-19.

Jamaica received its first doses of COVID-19 vaccines on March 8, 2021, a donation from the government of India that saw the country starting its stockpile with 50,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

This sparked the beginning of Jamaica’s COVID-19 vaccination drive and a target was set for the number of citizens to be vaccinated.

“In terms of setting a target, we are looking for 65 per cent of that population that we will reach,” said Dunstan Bryan, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Wellness at the time of the announcement.

That percentage translates to almost two million Jamaicans.

But, at the start of 2022, having witnessed a low number of Jamaicans showing up at vaccination sites, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said his focus had shifted.

“My target is that I wish everybody over 18 or over 12 should have the vaccine. I have not been stuck on the 65 per cent number anymore because I think the virus is best neutralised if we all buy into [the vaccine],” Tufton said during a press briefing in January.

He noted that, at that time, roughly 600,000 citizens were vaccinated and the Government needed to “move with a pace to get more people on board”.

To date, just 738,069 Jamaicans have been fully vaccinated, according to data supplied to Our Today by the Ministry of Health and Wellness. In addition to this, 716,056 are partially vaccinated and 40,711 booster shots have been given.

The numbers of each vaccine distributed since the start of the national vaccination programme are as follows:

• AstraZeneca: 830,536
• Pfizer: 544,660
• Johnson and Johnson: 122,731
• Sinopharm: 982

Despite the disappointingly low take up of vaccinations and boosters, the ministry is not abandoning its vaccination programme, stating instead that it remained determined to increase the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19.

“The ministry will continue to meet people where they are with the level of acceptance and provide credible information so they can make informed decisions. COVID-19 vaccines provide the best protection against severe disease, hospitalisation and death from the SARS CoV 2 virus,” the ministry indicated in response to queries from Our Today.

Currently, the Government is in possession of 74,635 Johnson and Johnson vaccine doses; 197,320 doses if Sinopharm and 379,112 Pfizer vaccine doses.

When asked the expiration date for these vaccines the ministry said some are slated to expire this month (November 2022), while others expire in either May 2023 or September 2023.

However, the ministry did not specify which expiry dates related to which brands.

As the ministry seeks to distribute the remaining vaccines in its stockpiles, citizens can visit their nearest health centre to receive their shots.

Information on when specific health centres will have vaccines doses available is posted on the ministry’s website moh.gov.jm.

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