Adolescent vaccination campaign set to begin at reopening of schools next week

With schools set to reopen in the upcoming week, Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony revealed on Tuesday, that his ministry will soon be launching a vaccination campaign in schools across the country, to increase the uptick of COVID-19 vaccinations.

This comes on the heels of what Minister Anthony described as “pretty stagnant” inoculation numbers in the younger age category.

“There is a lot more work to be done with this age group. Unfortunately, we have been seeing like 100-200 vaccinations a day and that includes both first and second doses, so that’s pretty low and these numbers have been pretty stagnant for quite a while,” he said.

However, the minister expressed his belief that with the rollout of this new vaccination drive in schools, more students will be able to easily receive the jab.

Minister Anthony noted the importance of permission by parents and guardians for students under the age of 18. He explained that his ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, have already identified mechanisms to have this addressed frontally.

“Parents would have to give permission before we can vaccinate the child…just before school closed, the schools were sending out letters to parents for them to sign and hopefully when school resumes, we would be able to get those permission slips so that we can organise the vaccination within the schools,” Dr. Anthony explained.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has conducted several vaccine hesitancy workshops to continue educating citizens about the importance of vaccines, in an effort to encourage more persons to take the vaccine.

“The understanding is if our healthcare workers and other stakeholders better understand the reason why people should be vaccinated, they can become champions of getting people to be vaccinated,” the minister highlighted.

Schools are expected to reopen on April 25.