“Today is a good day. It is a step in the right direction,” Anguilla’s Premier and Minister of Health, Dr Ellis Lorenzo Webster, remarked as the COVID-19 vaccine arrived on the island on Thursday morning, February 4.
He was speaking to The Anguillian newspaper when nine large boxes containing 8,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were offloaded at the Clayton J. Lloyd International Airport. The vaccine was transhipped to Anguilla on a special flight from Antigua. It was taken there on a British Airways flight from London on Wednesday evening, February 3, under the surveillance of a chaperone.
Premier Webster continued: “COVID-19 closed us down in March 2020. We now have a chance, to ensure the health of our people, get them immunised and open the economy. We need this chance and I want to thank the United Kingdom Government and the Governor’s Office for procuring the vaccine and you can see how important it is. The rest of the world is fighting to get vaccine so that they can vaccinate their people. We have it here now and we want to make sure that everybody is registered to get vaccinated, and let’s open Anguilla.”
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Mr. Foster Rogers, who is one of the Government officials leading the COVID-19 process in Anguilla, was at the airport to receive the vaccine. He was accompanied by Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Aisha Andrewin, and other health personnel. They were among Governor Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam, Premier Webster and his Cabinet.
Mr. Rogers told The Anguillian newspaper that he and his team were on the airport to receive the vaccine; to take it to a cold storage facility at the Princess Alexandra Hospital; and to begin distributing it the following day, Friday, February 5.
He went on: “The temperature in the van, in which we are transporting the vaccine, must be between 5 and 25 degrees centigrade, but the vaccine itself is being stored at between 5 and 6 degrees centigrade in the packs. The second batch of 7,500 doses should be in Anguilla within the last week of this month – February.”
Mr. Rogers explained that the first persons to be administered the vaccine, as from Friday, would be members of the House of Assembly; members of Government; some persons in the community and medical and health employees. “As from Monday, February 8, we will continue with more health services staff, clinic staff, other members of the service team and the surveillance team,” he stated. “We will take one or two days to do so then we will go into the other civil protection teams including the police, customs, immigration, prison and so forth. On the week of February 15 we will begin to roll out the vaccine to hotel workers and other persons in the community.”
The Permanent Secretary further explained that the AstraZeneca vaccine is a two-dose application and that the second dose can be done between 28 days and three months. “It is done in two separate jabs,” as its administration is now called,” he said.
Up to Thursday, February 4, close to two thousand persons in Anguilla had registered for the vaccine on the online COVID registration site. “We are still having special sensitization meetings in the community. It is going pretty well and I think we will be able to meet our target over the short to medium term,” he stated.
Mr. Rogers said there would not be a need to vaccinate the entire population. “We will do between 70 and 80 percent for two reasons. It will be sufficient to ensure that enough immunity is covered, plus we will not give the vaccine to pregnant women and persons under 18. The vaccine has not been tested on pregnant women and persons under 18. When the research is done we will advise those persons accordingly.”
Asked what advice he had for the people of Anguilla, he responded: “We are asking all persons, who have not signed up yet, to do so soon because this vaccine is very important – not only to you personally – but to the health of your family, your job, the country in general, the economy; and for us to get back to some sort of livelihood so that we can stay sustainable.
“We ask everybody to read up on the vaccine from reliable sources. It is a safe vaccine. It has so far been distributed to millions and millions of persons around the world and we ask everybody having questions to contact us.”
In addition to Anguilla, supplies of the vaccine were delivered to Montserrat on Wednesday, February 3, and, after Anguilla, to the British Virgin Islands on Thursday, February 4.
