BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Thursday 17th June 2021)- The Ministry of Health has sent abroad virus samples for testing to determine which variant of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is present in St.Kitts-Nevis.
“Last week, the Ministry of Health, sent off samples to the Caribbean Public Health Agency for genomic sequencing. From this information, we will find out the variant of the SARS COVID virus that is presently in circulation,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hazel Laws said during her appearance on ‘Leadership Matters’ programme aired on ZIZ on Tuesday 15th June 2021.
“SARS COVID 2 has been reintroduced into the federation. It’s circulating and at present, we are trying our very best to contain the current wave of COVID-19 cases. This wave was recognized on May 19th of this year so that’s about four weeks ago and between then to present, we have added 206 cases to our COVID-19 tally, “ Dr. Laws said during the health situation report at the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) COVID-19 Daily Briefing held on Wednesday 16th June 2021.
When questioned about the virus variant at that forum, the CMO mentioned her previous remarks whilst further saying “We are unable to tell you emphatically which variant is in circulation because we are awaiting results from the genomic sequencing exercise. The samples have been shipped already.”
She highlighted that the ministry has been utilising the public health tools to help to flatten this curve as was done in 2020. Areas include contact tracing, testing, continuing the vaccination roll-out and the restrictions.
According to her, the contact tracing process has been successful to date.
“Most of the recent cases we have identified, we have done so through the contact tracing process , and because we have picked up these cases as soon as we have , we have actually prevented a significant number of cases by just contact tracing alone so to date, the team has team we have interviewed 1887 persons. We’ve officially released 1328 while 649 have been released from quarantine”
The CMO talked about testing cases and contacts and also conducting targeted testing in communities in order to prevent clusters in different geographical areas that will continue.
Additionally, she revealed that within the last four week period, 5633 individuals have been tested which is 11.9% of the population, adding “so this is good and so we will continue.”
Speaking about the national vaccination rollout which has been ongoing for four months, Dr. Laws informed that 63.3 % of the target population have been covered with the first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, and 31% of the target population is covered by the second dose of being fully vaccinated.
Health authorities are aiming to reach 70% herd immunity via the vaccination drive.
Dr. Laws said 10,255 persons in the Federation are now fully vaccinated.
“And so when you compare St.Kitts and Nevis with the neighbouring islands that make up the Easter Caribbean Currency Union, we are doing quite well in terms of our COVID-19 vaccination roll-out, and so we will continue because the more persons we have vaccinated, the greater the proportion of individuals who would have acquired immunity and this and of itself would help to break the chains of transmission of the virus as we speak, and so this is very very important,” she pointed out.
The CMO gave a reminder that lactating/breastfeeding mothers can come onboard to get the vaccine noting that “the scientific information tells us that it is safe for breastfeeding women to take this vaccine.”