Vaccinate your asthmatics!

Dr Melody Ennis, director of family health services in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, has appealed to the parents of children with illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis to ensure they get the COVID19 vaccine.

Ennis, who is leading Jamaica’s vaccination effort against COVID-19, was speaking at an education ministry town hall on vaccination yesterday. She said that heart conditions, cancer and epilepsy do not prevent people from taking the vaccine. Of the 68,131 cases of COVID19 that have been confirmed in Jamaica, 3,650 relate to children up to age nine, and another 5,272 cases involve 10 to 19 years olds.

Jamaica has had 1,518 COVID-19 related deaths, 10 of them among children 0-19 years old, seven of which are in the 10-19 age group.

“Even in the few children that have died from COVID here in Jamaica, (the) majority of them have some underlying conditions be it asthma, be it bronchitis, be it cancer. They are not fully well children, so the advice is that if your child has any underlying condition, those children more so than their colleagues without underlying conditions, we beg of you to have them vaccinated. So, your asthmatic should get vaccinated,” Ennis said.

Fayval Williams, the country’s education minister, said she is unable to indicate when face-to-face school will resume as the ministry has to wait to see how the COVID numbers play out and heed what the Ministry of Health and Wellness advises.

Jamaica has set about vaccinating children as young as 12 against COVID-19. The authorities are working towards getting 65 per cent of the high school cohort vaccinated for face- to- face classes to resume. As of yesterday, 37,385 students have taken the vaccine.