House to House Vaccination Begins

• At least nine health departments across the island have begun house to house vaccination. Healthcare teams, including public health nurses and community health aides from Hanover, Manchester, St. Elizabeth, Trelawny, Westmoreland, St. Ann, St. Mary, Portland and St. Thomas have been deployed to communities across the island to administer the COVID-19 vaccines to shut-ins, disabled and the elderly. 
• According to Health & Wellness Minister, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, “This house to house vaccination programme is intended to take vaccines to communities that are not close to a fixed site and to persons who are not able to travel to these sites.” 
• This represents another phase in the national vaccination efforts and is in keeping with the principles of the programme, which includes national equity – developing appropriate deployment strategy and distribution infrastructure to ensure access to priority population. 
• The government is hoping to vaccinate 40% of the population by Christmas and to date only 12% of the population is fully vaccinated. Therefore, the house to house vaccination will help to increase vaccination numbers, as well as put the government closer to its target. Higher inoculation rates will put the country in a stronger position to relax containment measures.

(Source: JIS News & NCBCM Research)