PSVI putting vaccines to work!

Central to the plans were the commitment of companies to pay for the vaccination of staff and dependents, active participation in the education and assurance of work teams about vaccine safety and efficacy, as well as the contribution of inventory items to support the vaccination centres set up by the ministry across the island.

ON MARCH 10, 2020, Jamaica recorded the first case of COVID-19 infection. On March 10, 2021, the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) began implementing its vaccination programme.

Throughout all the phases of the COVID19 pandemic, the private sector and, indeed, the PSOJ have played the role of collaborator, connecting and mobilising stakeholders in the fight to protect lives and livelihoods from the social and economic devastations brought on by the virus.

It was this same spirit of collaboration that spurred the leaders of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association and the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, to embark upon the establishment of a mechanism to support the ministry’s national vaccination plan.

The mechanism was named the Private Sector Vaccine Initiative (PSVI) and in March when it began, it was clear that its set purpose was to accelerate the pace and penetration of vaccines across the island and support the MOHW’s drive towards herd immunity – which was a target of inoculating 65 per cent of the Jamaican population by March 2022.

The team, with Chris Zacca chairing the oversight committee; Peter Melhado chairing the logistics and operations committee; Tarun Handa heading up the finance committee, and Keith Duncan helming communication and public education, set out immediately to mobilise the leaders across all sectors to share the vision and to enlist the support to help make it happen.

Central to the plans were the commitment of companies to pay for the vaccination of staff and dependents, active participation in the education and assurance of work teams about vaccine safety and efficacy, as well as the contribution of inventory items to support the vaccination centres set up by the ministry across the island. Together with the utilisation of established medical facilities and personnel within the associations’ network that were prepared to contribute to supporting increased vaccination capacity islandwide, the PSVI championed a plan described by Chris Zacca as one that identified “the vaccination programme as the clear and significant pathway for us to return economic activities to levels of normality and bring back jobs to families and communities that were hard hit by the pandemic”.

In a matter of months the initiative had contributed in excess of $25 million to the effort, including the purchase of 400 tablets that the MOHW uses in its vaccination centres to support registration and data management, and quarterbacking the development of the Health Records Management platform, funded by UNICEF.

On July 29, acting as a vaccination agent of the MOHW, the PSVI vaccinated its first 1,100 private-sector employees and dependents in its vaccination programme. Eight weeks later, the vaccinated numbered 20,213. Thirty-four companies, spread across nine parishes, hosted Vax Days at their office locations, and more than 300 used the fixed site on Waterloo Road in St Andrew to get their work teams vaccinated.

The engagement with the private sector in March is keeping steady pace up to now, much to the satisfaction of the logistics lead, Peter Melhado, who, in commenting on the vaccination numbers the initiative has logged so far, expressed:

“We are very pleased with the responses we are getting from the private sector, which has contributed to the progress we are making with our programme. We have a ways to go yet, but this milestone, in just about two months, is an encouraging sign.”