By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas should receive some 40,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine by the end of this month, Health Minister Renward Wells said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Mr Wells said those doses will be acquired through the African Medical Supplies Platform, a non-profit initiative created by the African Union in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He spoke after Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis revealed Monday night that his administration had concluded negotiations to bring in a substantial number of new vaccines in the country.

Dr Minnis said in the next few months, The Bahamas will soon have the capacity to administer the jab to all who wish to receive it.

Yesterday, Mr Wells was unable to give additional details on government negotiations for the acquisition of additional vaccines, repeating that the Minnis administration is working aggressively to secure more doses in the country.

He said officials are expecting to soon receive the Pfizer brand and also the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, the latter of which requires only one shot.

As it stands now, the country is only administering shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

“We are in negotiations and we’re really not going to speak to the specifics of those negotiations, but I can say on one other front other than the Pfizer front because we are expecting a large donation of Pfizer and the Prime Minister would’ve intimated that last night,” Mr Wells told reporters yesterday. “But, I can speak to the fact that probably by the end of August we will have somewhere in the area of maybe 40,000 doses of Johnson and Johnson through our African platform.

“You would remember that I’ve been speaking about that for almost a year, that the Caribbean and Africa came together to increase our buying power and we have collectively pooled our resources and The Bahamas is entitled right now to about 40,000 doses of Johnson and Johnson and we put down our down payment for it and we’ll be expecting that no later than the end of August that we’ll be receiving that Johnson and Johnson vaccine.”

Last week, The Bahamas received the third tranche of pre-paid Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines through the Pan American Health Organisation’s COVAX facility.

According to Dr Minnis, demand for the shots has increased since the government’s vaccination programme resumed on August 5, mostly among people seeking to have their first doses.

He urged Bahamians to get vaccinated and encourage others who have not yet received their first shots to get on board as well.

According to the latest information from officials, The Bahamas has received a total of 129,296 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine while 109,616 doses of the vaccine have been administered to Bahamians and residents as of August 9.