By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH Minister Renward Wells said yesterday the Pfizer vaccine will “almost certainly” be available in the country this year.

He also revealed that the government has acquired isolation chambers that can transport obese people from the Family Islands to New Providence.

Mr Wells said officials expect to receive an additional 33,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the Pan American Health Organisation this week to complete their acquisition of 100,800 doses which were purchased through the World Health Organisation’s COVAX Facility.

Health officials have nonetheless said they are looking to bring Pfizer vaccines in the country because these are the only vaccines currently approved for emergency use in children. More young people have been catching COVID-19 and becoming seriously ill during the third wave of the virus than during previous waves.

“(We are) waiting on Pfizer to come back with a cost,” Mr Wells told reporters before a Cabinet meeting yesterday. “As soon as they say what the cost is, the Bahamas government will seek to move in that direction. I would say once we have the information, I would seek to (ensure that) within weeks that it is actually in (the) country.”

Mr Wells said a cold storage facility capable of holding Pfizer vaccines will be up and running by the end of this week. He said the facility will be able to hold about 50,000 doses of Pfizer. An additional eight small freezers will be available at the end of the week as well which are capable of holding about 7000 doses, he said.

Mr Wells could not say if the government will accept China’s offer to provide the country with its Sinopharm vaccine, which recently received approval from the WHO for emergency use.

“The government has not yet made a decision on the Sinopharm vaccine,” he said. “It’s been EUL (emergency use listing) approved by the WHO, but we will be seeking to have further discussions with them and obviously with the healthcare team we will be able to make decisions as to what we will do.”

The issue of isolation (ISO) chambers to transport COVID-19 patients from Family Islands arose in April after a 74-year-old Bimini resident died when he was refused airlift because of his weight.

Princess Margaret Hospital Administrator Mary Lightbourne-Walker said at the time that people who exceed 270lbs cannot be carried using equipment that was available in the country.

Mr Wells said yesterday: “We’ve secured larger ISO chambers. As a matter of fact, on Monday we had an individual in Central Andros who was severely obese with COVID and we were able to use the larger pods and the help of the Defence Force to get that individual on the air ambulance and to be able to bring them into New Providence.

“We’ve addressed it but it’s a continuing process because we need to purchase additional pods, we need to get larger aircrafts. COVID has exposed a lot of the chinks in the armour that we had in the healthcare sector, and we’ve been seeking to repair those and to progressively move the healthcare sector forward so in the event that we are ever back in this place, we would be even more prepared to continue to save the lives of the Bahamian people.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health recorded 18 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the nation’s total to 11,597. Thirteen of those new cases are in New Providence, while there is one each in Grand Bahama, Exuma and Inagua and two new cases in Andros.

The death toll from the virus is 226.