By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

PFIZER vaccines that are due to expire at the end of this month may have to be thrown away if vaccine uptake does not increase soon, officials warned yesterday.

The co-chair of the National Vaccine Consultative Committee, Dr Danny Davis, gave the warning and added that another batch of vaccines is expected to expire at the end of August. 

While he was unable to say how many vaccines are nearing expiration, Dr Davis said officials are trying to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated before those doses expire.

This comes as the appetite for vaccinations in the country continues to decline.

 Last week, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville told The Tribune that social mobilisation, inclusive of gifts and prices, were not effective in sparking uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in The Bahamas. 

 “Currently, in The Bahamas we only have Pfizer available,” Dr Davis said yesterday. “At the rate at which we are consuming vaccines, invariably if that doesn’t increase, I think we’ll see once again we’d be faced with having vaccine doses that would’ve expired and we would stop administering those doses.

 “There are two batches that we have in (the) country and one expires at the end of May and the other at the end of August.”

 As for what happens next when those doses expire, Dr Davis has assured the public that officials will acquire additional vaccines that are up to date.

 “The Ministry of Health is making a conscious effort to ensure that we always have vaccines available for the public. So, while a batch may meet its expiry date, we do ensure that another batch is ready to take over. When your milk goes bad in the fridge, you purchase another one before that date hopefully and we’re doing the same thing to ensure the public always has available to them the vaccines that are required to ensure the public health response that we want to see as a result of this vaccine is in fact present and available.”

 According to Dr Davis to date, 165, 837 people have been fully vaccinated against the virus, comprising just over 51 percent of the eligible persons in the country.

 He added that officials have been focused on educating the public to get more people vaccinated.

 It is not clear how many vaccines have expired in the country since the launch of the nation’s vaccination programme.

 However, earlier this year, government officials confirmed that several Johnson & Johnson vaccines had to be discarded when the shots expired in December.