by Kevon Browne
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Medical Officials will begin to administer Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccines today in St. Kitts and Nevis.
According to the St. Kitts Health Promotion Unit’s Facebook page, interested individuals should visit or call their nearest health centres to make an appointment for their dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
The vaccine is available for anyone 12 years and older, and officials have been using various platforms to encourage parents to get their eligible students vaccinated and for parents, teachers and staff themselves to get vaccinated.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine became the only vaccine approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for children 12 years and up in August.
“As stakeholders in education, we have a moral obligation to vaccinate. We must make every effort to protect ourselves, our co-workers, and the children who cannot be vaccinated. The potential fallout from the continued reluctance of eligible persons to be vaccinated is grave… At this juncture, I must remind that in addition to the other layers of protection available to us, we now have a vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine, that can be administered to students 12 years and older, our students mainly at the secondary and tertiary levels now have the opportunity to protect themselves against the Coronavirus. I urge all students not to miss this opportunity to be vaccinated,” the Hon. Jonel Powell during the opening of the 2021-2022 academic school year.
Minister Powell echoed his previous sentiments during the Sept. 1 broadcast of Island Tea Hosted by Azem Bailey and Kevon Hanley.
“The school year has officially started. We will welcome back students on [September 8]. Again, I want to encourage and urge all staff members in every school, whether it’s a public or private school, [to] go out and get vaccinated, protect yourself, protect the students protect your schools. If schools have to close, the ripple effects on our economy, on our livelihoods it’s not going to be good. Parents who have children 12 years and up, please, we are now, as of today, offering the Pfizer vaccine for those kids; take your kids off vaccinate them against COVID-19. You vaccinated them when they were born against all sorts of other things that are less dangerous. Take them out, vaccinate them to protect them, protect yourselves as well. Schools are different environment is a lot of people. There’s a lot of people in close proximity. We don’t want to see outbreaks in our schools, so please go out, vaccinate and remember where your mask, sanitise [and] physical distance.”
Premier Hon. Mark Brantley, Senior Minister of Health in the Nevis Island Administration (NIA), said the rollout in Nevis would be a soft one at the start at the Charlestown Health Centre. Then from next week, they will roll out the Pfizer vaccine at all the health centres on Nevis.
The federation currently has 11,700 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the first of three shipments expected in the Federation.
As Pfizer is a two-dose vaccine, the dosing interval being adopted by the Federation is a 21 day or three-week interval between doses, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr Hazel Laws.
Sixty-six percent of the government’s target, 33,037, has gotten both doses of the vaccines since the start of the initial vaccine rollout in February. The Pfizer vaccine allows for vaccination of people outside of that target, including 12 -17-year-olds.
