KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton, has defended the COVID-19 vaccination process following reports that one vial of the AstraZeneca vaccine has gone missing.

The minister, in a series of tweets this morning, said health administrators and the vaccination process should not be condemned.

“To be clear, we WILL take care not to waste (or) lose any doses of the Covid vaccines. However, I do not think we should condemn the efforts of our health administrators in the field after that administered over 1700 vials and one vial is unaccounted for,” he tweeted.

“We should not condemn the process after over 60 sites have functioned well to administer vaccines because two had challenges around who got vaccinated,” the minister continued.

Reports emerged on Tuesday that one vial, containing 10 doses, had gone missing from Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay.

The health ministry, in a press release late Tuesday, said the vial was discovered to be missing after standard checks were carried out during the vaccination process.

The Western Regional Health Authority is currently carrying out an investigation into that report. The ministry informed that the investigation involves the review of CCTV footage and the policies and procedures at the site.

Several members of staff of the WRHA who were assigned to the vaccination site have since been reassigned pending the outcome of the investigation.

Tufton, in his Twitter posts, lamented that public health workers and the vaccine process are being judged against perfection.

“None of us are perfect but we will continue to work towards it!” he said, adding that vaccines being lost in the process is not unique to Jamaica.

“… I want to remind you it is happening globally. Not an excuse but we are and will continue to do our best to ensure we neither waste or lose vaccines!” he said in a tweet accompanied by screen grabs of reports that vaccines have gone missing in the United States.

In addition to the missing vial of vaccine, the Ministry of Health on Tuesday said a review is taking place of the circumstances in which six doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were accidentally damaged at the Lucea Health Centre in Hanover when a vial is believed to have fallen from the hand of a worker who was in the process of returning it to a cold storage container.

The ministry said it is also following up on preliminary reports at a vaccination site in Westmoreland, where eight doses fell and broke from a cold storage container which was on a table that collapsed.