St Lucia to vaccinate its front line workers from today onwards

Prime Minister of Saint Lucia informed that the country would start to immunize its front-line workers on the live broadcast from Wednesday, February 17, 2021, onwards.

Prime Minister Allen Chastanet referred to the immunization drive as the milestone for St Lucia and invited all St Lucians to watch the live broadcast starting from 10:30 am onwards today on the National Television Network (NTN).

St Lucia has received the Oxford Astrazeneca coronavirus vaccine from Barbados and Dominica. According to information, Dominica donated 2000 doses of the vaccine while Barbados assisted St Lucia with 1000 jabs. St Lucia is struggling to control the rapidly growling infections as the country has more than 2500 confirmed cases of the virus and over 23 virus-related deaths.

Prime Minister Allen Chastanet's government is clearly relying on vaccine donations from its sister nations as St Lucia has not been able to utilize its bilateral relations with other countries to afford the vaccine for its wider population.

Ministry of health St Lucia has also started their surveys to understand the inputs of the public regarding the coronavirus vaccine drive of the country.

"The Ministry of Health and Wellness is conducting a COVID-19 vaccine survey to determine the attitude of people judging in Saint Lucia towards the COVID-19 vaccines and to determine if they are willing to be vaccinated," stated Prime Minister Chastanet.

The survey uses a modified version of the Pan-American Health Organization Vaccine Questionnaire. The Ministry hopes to capture a cross-section of the population aged 18 and older. The survey will be conducted on the Survey Monkey platform. The survey will be distributed from Monday 15 February to Monday 22 February 2021 via the mobile communication platforms Digicel and Flow.

Prime Minister informed that the survey consists of 29 questions divided into five sections covering the demographics, such as age, gender, and occupation. He mentioned that the findings would outlay the general attitude towards vaccines, attitude towards flu vaccines, attitude towards COVID-19 vaccines, and people's willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccine are also looked at.

He advised that people must read the consent form and then tick the box at the end of the form to agree to the recording.

Authorities have demanded participation in this COVID-19 vaccination survey and referred to it as valuable to the Ministry of Health. It asserted that the information anyone provides would contribute to the Ministry's communication and education strategy aimed at empowering the people to make informed decisions regarding COVID-19 vaccination.

The Ministry of Health and Wellness looks forward to your participation in this COVID19 survey. '