Last Updated on October 29, 2021, 7:41 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Basseterre: St Kitts and Nevis has reaffirmed its position as a leader in the global community by being the first independent territory in the Caribbean subregion to achieve the World Health Organization (WHO) benchmark of having at least 40 percent of the population of all countries vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of 2021.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Hazel Laws highlighted this development at the October 27 COVID-19 briefing by the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC). She presented statistics from the October 26 Vaccination report showing that 72.1 percent of the adult population and 8.2 percent of the target population of children within the ages of 12 and 17 are fully vaccinated against the deadly COVID virus. -19.
In real terms, 22,227 people were fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, October 26. Using the figures from the last census, this represents 51.3 percent of the population. Dr. Laws indicated that the 40 percent baseline set by WHO was achieved in late August or early September.
“The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) will recognize the Federation’s achievement by publishing an article on the Federation’s strong leadership in vaccine deployment … and this article will have a global reach,” said CMO Laws.
St. Kitts and Nevis began their Roll Up 2 Roll Out vaccination campaign on February 22, 2021. Currently, two COVID-19 vaccines are being administered to people who volunteer to get vaccinated. These are the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
