By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

ABOUT 38,400 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine arrived in the Bahamas yesterday.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Pearl McMillan said officials will now assess how to incorporate the one-shot vaccine into the schedule alongside Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.

“We anticipate we would have put out a schedule for the Pfizer (vaccine) and then we will be then now looking at how we can begin to incorporate the Johnson & Johnson into the roll out but definitely our focus is on getting persons to take the you know Pfizer vaccine which we are rolling out at many sites.

“We are continuing to offer the AstraZeneca at the Church of God site, but as it relates to the Johnson & Johnson that we anticipate will be incorporated into the schedule but probably not today or tomorrow. So you will have to continue to listen out for when we begin to actually roll out the Johnson & Johnson,” she told reporters.

As for the Family Islands, she added the roll out of the second doses of AstraZeneca will begin in those communities and officials will then likely use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, noting the one shot dosage will make it easier to cover the islands.

“If we are able to do one shot on a particular island and we’re done that makes it much easier for us, but I stay revert to what Consultative Committee as we have been guiding the whole roll out in a consensus way,” she said.

“We have a meeting later on today to begin to discuss the roll out so the public will know soon exactly what we’re doing.”

Last week, the country received Pfizer vaccines from the US government. US Chargé d’Affaires Usha Pitts said the second and third tranches of Pfizer vaccines will arrive in time to “keep the vaccination campaign running”.

Dr McMillan noted the challenges with rolling out the Pfizer vaccine to the Family Islands.

“The vaccine, the cold chain, you know that is important to any vaccine, must be taken into consideration as we do the rollout. The Pfizer as we know has a specific cold chain requirement which might make it a little more difficult to actually roll that out on a family of islands but the consideration because we have the smaller coolers. I mean the consideration is there, but I would say the Johnson & Johnson as well as the AstraZeneca, the cold chain for those vaccines are what we are (going to) use for rolling out to our family of islands and that would make it a little easier for us to use those vaccines in the Family Islands, but that does not rule out Pfizer as a possibility.”