Approximately 65 per cent of Jamaicans are being targeted for vaccination by March 2022.
However, health officials are wary that vaccine hesitancy might affect that ambitious goal.
The country is expected to receive its first batch of 50,000 vaccines from India by Thursday, which will form part of a total of 974,800 doses to be dispensed over the next three months.
More than 247,000 Jamaicans are being targeted for vaccination in the first phase, while more than 1.1 million are expected to be get the jab in the third stage. More than four million doses are expected to be here by March next year.
“One of the big reasons why we can’t do more than those targets that have been set is because, as of now, based on these plan, the bottleneck is the people to implement, the technical people to implement,” said Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton during the unveiling of an interim vaccination plan on Tuesday.
“We have to use people who are qualified, [and] the truth is we are limited.”
Permanent Secretary Dunstan Bryan said that 893 health professionals are to be contracted across the island to assist with conducting vaccinations at blitz sites that will be established at major locations in each parish.
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