A new COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion cam­paign to sen­si­tise par­ents, care­givers, and ado­les­cents about the ben­e­fits of im­mu­niza­tion is be­ing de­vel­oped and will soon be im­ple­ment­ed by the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA).

The ef­fort is be­ing done in part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID) and the Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren's Fund (UNICEF).  Some US$70,000 has been tar­get­ed to as­sist in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of ac­tiv­i­ties aimed at ac­cel­er­at­ing COVID-19 vac­cine up­take.

A re­lease from CARPHA re­ports that the US$70,000 do­na­tion is part of the US$1.5 mil­lion COVID-19 as­sis­tance an­nounced by US­AID in March 2022, for coun­tries in the East­ern Caribbean re­gion in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, The Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, and Suri­name.

Back in 2021, CARPHA re­ceived an ul­tra-cold freez­er from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Port of Spain, part of an over­all do­na­tion which in­cludes lab­o­ra­to­ry sup­plies, lab­o­ra­to­ry coats, and scrubs.

“As COVID-19 re­stric­tions ease through­out the Re­gion, the com­mu­ni­ca­tions cam­paign will serve as a time­ly re­minder to im­prove vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age with­in the coun­tries of the Caribbean re­gion,” the CARPHA re­lease stat­ed.

CARPHA’s Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Dr Joy St. John, gave a com­mit­ment that CARPHA will work with the ben­e­fi­cia­ry coun­tries to help them achieve the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s (WHO) rec­om­mend­ed tar­get of 70% full im­mu­ni­sa­tion rate against COVID-19.

She ob­served that be­fore the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the re­gion was a glob­al leader in vac­ci­na­tion achieve­ments, not­ing the Caribbean had elim­i­nat­ed po­lio, and achieved “vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age rates over 90-95% for rou­tine child­hood vac­ci­na­tions”.

“Ac­cess to safe, re­li­able vac­cines has proven to be the most ef­fec­tive way of pre­vent­ing se­vere ill­ness and death, since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic,” the CARPHA Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor said.  “Along­side the pub­lic health safe­ty mea­sures, em­ployed by all of so­ci­ety, vac­ci­na­tion has helped the re­gion sur­vive this pan­dem­ic.”

Dr St. John added: “The wave of vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy which we watched sweep over North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope over the last decade al­so ar­rived on the shores of the Caribbean as the num­ber of cas­es of COVID-19 in­creased. Just over two years in­to the pan­dem­ic, da­ta is al­ready re­veal­ing some ero­sion of hard-fought gains made over the years in rou­tine vac­ci­na­tion pro­grammes across the Mem­ber States.”

Chargé d’Af­faires at U.S. Em­bassy Port of Spain, Mr Shante Moore, ob­served:

“CARPHA, as the lead­ing health au­thor­i­ty and co­or­di­na­tor in the Caribbean re­gion, is unique­ly po­si­tioned to pro­vide guid­ance and as­sis­tance to Caribbean coun­tries on meth­ods and mes­sag­ing to in­crease vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age.”

 “As the say­ing goes, ‘Lo­cal prob­lems need lo­cal so­lu­tions,’ and that de­fines the spir­it of this col­lab­o­ra­tion. With this fund­ing, CARPHA will de­vel­op and im­ple­ment a sub­re­gion­al cam­paign to im­prove vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age,” he said.

“The Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment is pleased to be as­so­ci­at­ed with this ini­tia­tive,” the US of­fi­cial added.  “I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­state our com­mit­ment to as­sist the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean at large to over­come COVID-19.”

So­cial Pol­i­cy Of­fi­cer at UNICEF’s Of­fice for Bar­ba­dos and the East­ern Caribbean, Jemimah Wil­son, de­scribed the part­ner­ship be­tween CARPHA, UNICEF and US­AID as “am­bi­tious”, not­ing that it “will build on and ce­ment an al­ready fruit­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion aimed at mit­i­gat­ing the rav­ages of COVID-19”.

“We are all aware that vac­ci­na­tion is one of the ways for us to put this dev­as­tat­ing pan­dem­ic in our rear-view mir­ror, re­claim our every­day lives and look to the fu­ture with con­fi­dence and op­ti­mism,” the UNICEF of­fi­cial said.

“Progress has most cer­tain­ly been made to date, but we are far from where we need to be. In four of the coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries in the East­ern Caribbean, for ex­am­ple, the per­cent­age of those ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed ranges from just 28 per cent to 38 per cent. This has to change, and UNICEF is com­mit­ted to work­ing with CARPHA and US­AID to re­dou­ble our ef­forts to en­sure that all Caribbean chil­dren grow up healthy with­out COVID-19,” she added.

The CARPHA-US­AID-UNICEF al­liance was for­malised at a cer­e­mo­ny host­ed on Wednes­day 20 Ju­ly 2022, at the start of the CARPHA Tech­ni­cal Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee meet­ing was chaired by Dr Mark Sa­mi, Di­rec­tor of Cor­po­rate Ser­vices at CARPHA.  

In at­ten­dance were Dr Joy St. John, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of CARPHA; Mr. Shante Moore Chargé d’Af­faires of the Em­bassy of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go; Alana Shury, COVID-19 Co­or­di­na­tor, US­AID/East­ern and South­ern Caribbean; Jemimah Wil­son, So­cial Pol­i­cy Of­fi­cer, UNICEF Of­fice for Bar­ba­dos and the East­ern Caribbean; and Mem­bers of the Tech­ni­cal Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee.