By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THERE is a low uptake in vaccinations among people under 40 compared to the older population, according to health data.

While a panelist on a special Q&A about vaccines and boosters, former Special Health Advisor to the Prime Minister Dr Merceline Dahl Regis presented a graph showing the percentage of population fully vaccinated by age for males and females in the country as of January 29, 2022.

The graph noted the age at the time of first dose.

“I think we have the solution in The Bahamas on how we’re going to manage this pandemic... and (I) think the young people hold the key to making it happen,” Dr Dahl-Regis said.

“We need the young people to step up with their vaccination rates. When you look at the graph on the screen our aim is to get to 70 percent of the population. Look at those under 40, the uptake is very low. When you look at the difference between the blue and the pink, we need the young men to step up and we have implemented the public health measures and we have a tool, vaccines, to help us along.”

The graph shows that about 55 percent of women between the ages of 30-35 are fully vaccinated while about 45 percent of men around the age of 35 are vaccinated. The figures drop considerably for men under 35.

This pales in comparison to the elderly population where both genders peaked around the age of 75 with a vaccination percentage between 75 and 80.

The panel’s host brought up the fact that the key is to get all ages over 70 percent vaccination and asked if that was the target, Dr Dahl- Regis confirmed it was.

“If we do it quickly, I think we would see the response should another wave come you would have fewer hospitalisations, few cases - new cases… and fewer deaths,” Dr Dahl-Regis explained.

“This is a new virus, coronavirus, and it is ever changing and our information is coming out all the time. We learn about the behaviour of this virus through the lab, genomic sequencing, and when Omicron the new variant came no one expected a subvariant of that that would try over take the B one, You now have a B2, so the virus adjusts to situations when it finds its unvaccinated host for the most part and it multiples very quickly once it gets in the cells. Because it’s spike protein, its conformity changes to adjust to being attacked by the body’s antibodies and defence mechanism.”