By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas is expected to receive another 130,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the United States government early next month, Health Minister Dr Michael Darville revealed yesterday.

Dr Darville made the revelation to reporters ahead of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting where he commended the country’s rising vaccination rates.

This comes after the Ministry of Health reported earlier this week that 127,567 people in the country are now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Officials said 132,240 people have received one dose of a vaccine, excluding the Johnson and Johnson shot, while 255,085 shots have been administered so far since the start of the nation’s vaccination programme.

“We are pleased with the response to the vaccine thus far,” Dr Darville said of the numbers yesterday. “We’re also pleased that our vaccination centres are taking more appointments now that we’ve gotten the 57,000 doses of Pfizer. I’m also pleased from a meeting that I had earlier this morning that things are going very well for the American donation, the second tranche and that is good news for us.”

The Bahamas received 128,700 doses of the Pfizer vaccine as a donation from the US government in August.

The shipment was the first tranche of 397,000 Pfizer vaccine doses expected to be donated to this country.

Yesterday, Dr Darville said: “I believe we expect (the next batch) early next month, but I don’t want to give a date because that has not been finalised and so, yes, we got the 57,000 and now we’re expecting another 130,000 doses of Pfizer.”

News about the procurement of additional vaccines comes after the country received 57,330 doses of the Pfizer vaccine last week.

The shipment represented the fourth batch of COVID-19 vaccines secured through the World Health Organization’s COVAX Facility and also arrived at the time when supplies were “diminishing.”

However, with more doses now in the country, Dr Darville said he hopes more Bahamians will get vaccinated in the days ahead, noting that the benefits far outweigh the risks.

He said: “The Bahamian people are coming out. We hope and pray that that continues because the last thing you want to see in my position is it begins to flatten where there are some individuals who just decide that they don’t want the vaccine and so I’m pleading again to Bahamians everywhere that it is important to get vaccinated because we know from the studies that vaccinations prevent you from being hospitalised if you do get COVID and chances of death is minimised as a result of being vaccinated.

“And when we look at the cases in our hospital, the bulk of the cases in the hospital are those who have not been vaccinated so we plead to the Bahamian community to please go out there and get your vaccinations.”

Asked when officials expect The Bahamas to reach herd immunity, Dr Darville did not want to give a timeline, only saying their goal “is to get as many people vaccinated” as soon as possible.

He said: “We have a goal and our goal is to get as many people vaccinated as we possibly can. But again, as it stands right now, the vaccinations process is voluntary and we have made a commitment to the Bahamian people that that would stay in that position at this time and we are just praying and through public education, we want to convince the Bahamian people that it’s better to be vaccinated than not and that is our goal and in our new dispensation with communications, you will begin to see us roll out more aggressive programmes, more informative programmes, encouraging Bahamians everywhere to get vaccinated."