[BASSETERRE, St. Kitts] – St. Kitts and Nevis’ vaccination plan is now ready said Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris. Persons residing in the Federation will start receiving the vaccine against the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) from Monday, February 22, 2021.
Prime Minister Harris made the announcement Thursday, February 18, during the first sitting of the National Assembly for the year.
In making the announcement, the honourable prime minister stated that, “Our aim is not just for coverage of 20 percent of the population. But, to have more than 70 percent population coverage. Thereby achieving herd immunity and wide scale protection of all our people here in St. Kitts and Nevis.”
The Federation received two thousand (2,000) doses of vaccine from the Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica last week. And, will receive an additional 21,600 doses by the end of February through the COVID-19 Global Access (COVAX) Facility.
Vaccine Roll Out In Phases
According to Harris, the Federation’s vaccination plan will be rolled out in a phased approach. With the main goals being to prevent death and serious diseases as much as possible. Plus to preserve the orderly functioning of society. Which will reduce the extra burden that COVID-19 is having on people already facing vulnerabilities.
“Our plan is to ultimately access enough COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate at least 70 percent of our population. This will help to achieve the herd immunity threshold. We are in the process of expanding the storage capacities for vaccines at our two main hospitals. Eventually, the vaccines will be transferred from these central storage points to the 17 Health Centers on Nevis and St. Kitts. These are the designated vaccination sites on both islands. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is providing technical support as we speak. This includes training the community and public health teams to guarantee success of this vaccine implementation programme,” Prime Minister Harris added.
As part of the vaccination plan, the National Immunization Committee developed a prioritization framework to guide the vaccination process. A process which will occur in three phases. According to Prime Minister Harris, the plan outlines each of the target or priority groups to be vaccinated in each stage.
The Ministry of Health is currently partnering with the IT Department to develop a registry. The registry will include names of persons to be vaccinated plus a database to facilitate a COVID -19 vaccine safety surveillance.
