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Chebat on vaccination rollout

HighlightsChebat on vaccination rollout

BELIZE CITY, Tues. Mar. 2, 2021– The Minister of Health and Wellness, Hon. Michel Chebat, has informed the public that the first 1,000 AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed for inoculation of healthcare workers across the country. On March 2 alone, 417 healthcare workers received their first dose of the vaccine.

According to the Minister of Health and Wellness, these persons will receive the second dose of the vaccine by the end of the month. This is, of course, if all goes as planned, and our first batch of 100,800 doses of COVID-19 vaccines is delivered from the COVAX facility.

According to the Minister of Health and Wellness, doses of the vaccines can be administered within 12 weeks. According to the FDA, for two vaccines authorized in the US, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the recommendation is to administer the two separate doses which are required for immunity, within 21 and 28 days, respectively. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine requires only one dose.

On Saturday, the country will receive a batch of 25,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from the Indian government. This is a part of a commitment made by India to donate 500,000 Covid-19 vaccines to the Caribbean. Prime Minister John Briceño made a formal request for a supply of these vaccines in early February, which was recently brokered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and approved by India.

These vaccines will aid in continuing our vaccination campaign as we await the shipment from the COVAX facility. It is expected that the vaccines which arrive will be used to cover the first priority group, healthcare workers, which according to Minister Chebat consist of around four to five thousand persons countrywide. This means that eight to ten thousand jabs will be needed to fully immunize that entire priority group of healthcare workers.

And while the country is expecting the second batch of around 280,000 doses, Minister Chebat shared that the first shipment has been taking longer than they expected to arrive. The allocation letter that government has received is for the first batch of 100,800 jabs. At this time the country is still waiting for the COVAX facility to indicate when the second shipment will be sent.

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