Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton says his ministry is seeing signs the number of Jamaicans willing to take the covid-19 vaccine has increased since last year.
A worldwide poll by Gallup has shown that Jamaica had one of the highest vaccine hesitancy rates around the globe in 2020, with only 32 percent of the population saying they would take the jab.
Dr. Tufton says that figure is in line with local findings last year.
But he says there are signs of reduced hesitancy, for example among health care workers.
“In the early stages prior to the first vaccine, we were worried about the level of take up. We thought we would have seen less than 50 percent, which is kind of historical as health care workers tend not to take the flu shots and so on. But surprisingly we have seen higher numbers - above what we had originally anticipated, so that’s a good sign
The Health Minister also said that there should be updated data on vaccine take-up by Jamaica's elderly next week.
Meanwhile, the health minister has acknowledged there is a lot of work to be done to overcome vaccine hesitancy.
“We do have an army of public health, primary health care practitioners and their substantial role is to go into the community . So there is a lot of work to be done and I think that if we do it well, we will get those numbers up.”
He also said that the health ministry is looking to resume holding blitzes with vaccines it expects to receive this month, he added that the focus at this time is to administer second doses to at least 40,000 people.
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