The first set of 100 To­ba­go front­line work­ers re­ceived their ini­tial dos­es of the COVID-19 Ox­ford-As­traZeneca vac­cine at the Scar­bor­ough Health Cen­tre, on Sat­ur­day.

The cen­tre is one of three sites, in­clud­ing the Rox­bor­ough and Canaan Cen­tres, where vac­ci­na­tions will take place on the is­land.

Nige­ria-born Dr Ogonna Okeke, head of the De­part­ment of In­ter­nal Med­i­cine De­part­ment and Dr Ian Sam­my, head of Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment-To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, re­ceived the first and sec­ond vac­ci­na­tions, re­spec­tive­ly. Dis­trict Health Vis­i­tor La­toya McKen­zie-James ad­min­is­tered the first dose. Dis­trict Health Vis­i­tor Beryl Samuel-Gray ad­min­is­tered the shot to Dr Sam­my.

Soon af­ter re­ceiv­ing their vac­cines, both doc­tors said they felt fine. Dr Okeke said he felt "hun­gry and "nor­mal."

"I will strong­ly rec­om­mend (tak­ing the vac­cine)...We have to fol­low the sci­ence. I un­der­stand peo­ple's trep­i­da­tion be­cause there has been a lot on so­cial me­dia," he said.

Dr. Ian Sammy, Head, Accident and Emergency Department, Scarborough General Hospital receives the second dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in Tobago from Included Nurse, Beryl Samuel-Gray, District Health Visitor.

THA DIVISION OF HEALTH, WELLNESS AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

Dr Ian Sam­my said he be­lieved the vac­cine was safe and un­der­stood the risk of not tak­ing it. He said he had hy­per­ten­sion.

"I be­lieve that once we give peo­ple the in­for­ma­tion, they will be able to make an in­formed choice. Mine was per­son­al and al­so a con­sid­er­a­tion for what is best for the coun­try," he said.

The To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty's Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Pri­ma­ry Health Care Ser­vices Dr Rox­anne Mitchell said the au­thor­i­ty was ful­ly equipped to mon­i­tor per­sons tak­ing the vac­cines.

"With re­gard to the mon­i­tor­ing, we are ready. We were mon­i­tor­ing (COVID-19) per­sons in terms of pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary con­tacts dai­ly, in some cas­es twice per day. That mech­a­nism has been tried as we have the staff, and we do have the abil­i­ty to ramp up the mon­i­tor­ing."

Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness, and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said she was hap­py the vac­cines were in To­ba­go.

"To­day is a day of cel­e­bra­tion and more so a day of hope. It is a cel­e­bra­tion that for the sec­ond time, we have been able to record ze­ro cas­es of COVID-19 on the is­land," she said.

The 200 vac­cines were part of the 2,000 dos­es giv­en to T&T by the Bar­ba­dos Gov­ern­ment. Ac­cord­ing to the health au­thor­i­ties, more dos­es of the vac­cines are ex­pect­ed in To­ba­go next week.