On Monday 5 September, Dwight ‘Bing’ Joesph host of the OMG morning show on Boom FM described it as disgraceful that no tetanus vaccines were in the country.
“I started calling around to various health centres Calliaqua, Stubbs, Mespo and Georgetown and yes, they said there is none, in fact, they said it was going on for months”, Joesph said.
Minister of Health St Clair Jimmy Prince has responded to the recent concerns. In a recent interview, Prince explained that the vaccines in stock had “expired” and that an order had been made to replace them. According to him, “the order was delayed due to difficulties in the supply chain”.
In addition, Prince said, “PAHO was assisting in getting the order delivered as soon as possible. They were expected to arrive soon”, he said at the time of the interview.
This was the second time in less than five years that tetanus vaccines were unavailable in the country.
A release issued by the Ministry of Health in 2019 refuted claims that a shortage was present in the country.
At that time Mrs Ferosa Roache, director of the HIV/AIDS/STI Prevention and Control Unit at the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment, said that there has never been a situation in St. Vincent and the Grenadines where there was no Tetanus Toxide vaccine in the past six months, or for the past eighteen years for that matter. Furthermore, there was never a situation during the same period when there were insufficient vaccine doses to meet the population’s needs.
That statement contradicted the statement made by an opposition member during the debate on the Estimates for 2019 when the claim was made.
