By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville confirmed yesterday an official investigation has been launched to crack down on local printing companies producing fake vaccination cards.

 His comment to the press came after the Ministry of Health raised alarm about the issue on Monday, saying it was made aware that several printing entities had been issuing vaccination cards with false information on it.

 According to the ministry, the cards falsely claim the card holders had been vaccinated in countries abroad as opposed to locally.

 Yesterday, Dr Darville said officials were first alerted to the situation by the vaccination committee.

 “We got information through the vaccination committee that some cards are showing up in the system that are not specific to where the vaccinations were done and the press release spoke specifically about printing companies tampering with the cards and changing the Commonwealth of The Bahamas on a card that may be for another country,” Dr Darville said before going to a Cabinet meeting.

 While he was unable to confirm how many of the fraudulent cards have been detected thus far, Dr Darville said he didn’t believe it was a large number.

 He also revealed the Royal Bahamas Police Force is now probing the matter and further warned those found connected to the fraud scheme will be held to account.

“There is an ongoing investigation. I don’t want to go into the details of the investigation, but we want all printing companies who are producing cards and if they are involved in this kind of activity, they need to stop immediately because it was referred to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.”

 Concerns about people using fake vaccination cards comes as COVID cases continue to trend downward both locally and in some parts of the world.

 Some countries have even lifted mask mandates and other COVID-19 related restrictions in view of improving infection rates and are also encouraging self-COVID testing as the new normal.

 This comes amid reports that some local stores are also selling the self-rapid antigen tests.

Dr Darville cautioned suppliers who have been importing the tests to follow the proper procedure as mandated by the ministry.

 The public is also reminded that testing at an approved or registered reference lab remains the golden standard, he added.

 “We work very closely with the reference lab,” the minister said. “You know they test and they test with high specificity and reliability. The Ministry of Health and Wellness wants to make sure that tests coming into the country meet the WHO standard.

 “Some of the tests that are out there for sale, we need to know exactly what they are, but they are being used in the country and they are not specific tests. It’s probably a rough guide and for you to ensure that you have a negative or positive test and that may mean whether you go to work or not, it has to be from a registered reference lab.

“But we do warn suppliers that tests being imported into the country, particularly self-testing, have to go through a procedure at our national lab to ensure that what you’re doing makes sense because the quality may not be up to par and meet the standard that we have put in place at the Ministry of Health and Wellness.”

 In a statement released yesterday, the ministry reported that active COVID cases in the country now stand at 254 after a data cleaning exercise was conducted by officials.

 Due to the declining numbers, Dr Darville said he hopes the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention will lower the country’s travel warning from a level four to a level three or two soon.