Professor Winston Davidson - file photo
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Professor Winston Davidson
A member of the medical community is disappointed about the expiration of thousands of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine before they were administered.
Professor of Public Health Winston Davidson asserts that there was sloppiness in how the situation was handled by the health authorities, which should not be repeated.
Thousands of doses of the vaccine expired on Thursday and will have to be disposed of.
Professor Davidson says the vaccines should have been administered in a timely manner, especially since there were warning signs.
"I was told that this particular batch was sent to Jamaica and only given two weeks out of a shelf life of, I think, six weeks, and therefore it was challenging," he noted.
"This seems to me to be yet a problem that we have discussed publicly because...we have complained about the central management of the process, that there seems to be some sloppiness at the central level," he public health expert contended.
Professor Davidson, who was speaking on Thursday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond The Headlines, suggested that the government needs to work on its logistics to ensure vaccines can get to communities as quickly as possible after they land in the country.
Lack of urgency
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has blamed the waste of thousands of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on the lack of urgency by Jamaicans in getting inoculated.
"I think if the Jamaican public acted with greater urgency we could have utilised those vaccines easily. We have proven that we can," Mr. Holness insisted while speaking Thursday during a vaccination mobilisation tour in Oracabessa, St. Mary.
"This time, I think we are now at the point where we have almost exhausted the naturally willing persons and I think we are now into that population where you need to go out and reach them with information, with reasoning and with assurance," he suggested.
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