First batch of AstraZeneca vaccines almost gone

BY today, the entire first batch of AstraZeneca Covishield vaccines, which arrived from India, will be fully used up.

Co-Coordinator of the National Vaccination Program, Major David Clarke, outlined that unlike some other countries, including Malawi, which recently destroyed almost 20,000 expired vaccines due to a slow uptake of persons interested in receiving the jab against COVID-19, Barbados will not have any expired shots.

In February, India donated 100,000 doses of the vaccine to this island – the vials of which carried a May 29, 2021 expiration date.

Clarke noted that as this island’s program for the second doses for those first set of vaccinations winded down, all of those vials will be utilised.

“We would have gone through all of that ‘Covishield’, so there will be no wastage of that,” he said during yesterday’s episode of the COVID Communications Unit’s ‘COVID Queries’ series.

“We had received 45,000 doses and out of those we were able to do 52,000 people. We are now delivering the second dose of close to 55,000 people and you can see that we have used that up as well, as well as the first half of those received from the COVAX Facility. There are only two polyclinics which have any of that Covishield left and that will probably end today or tomorrow, so I can assure you that Barbados will not be throwing away any of its vaccine. We will finish two weeks before the expiry date,” he stressed.

Clarke assured persons who were awaiting their second shots that they would receive them, noting that over the weekend the two open days at the Masonic Lodge and the Barbados Investment Development Corporation had gone well and other open days were being planned.

“These days are for people who had their first dose and have not received the second or an appointment date,” he pointed out.

He admitted some of the challenges in persons receiving their appointment was because of technological challenges.

“Out of the 63,000 persons who received their first dose, we have been able to reach 55,000. There were some errors in data entry, which have led to us not being able to reach persons,” he lamented, stating that the Government Information Service will inform persons when the other open days will be.

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