KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, and French Ambassador to Jamaica, Olivier Guyonvarch, today, April 22, visited the Stony Hill HEART Academy vaccination site, where vaccines donated by France were being administered.

Also on the visit was the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) Representative to Jamaica, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, Ian Stein.

The Government of France had previously donated 620,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Jamaica.

Cuthbert-Flynn, who is also Member of Parliament for St Andrew West Rural, in which the site is located, thanked the French Government for the vaccine.

“The Ministry of Health and Wellness and the people of Jamaica are very grateful for the donation,” she said.

With the nation’s children now fully engaged in face-to-face classes, the State Minister said she is looking forward to an increase in uptake of the Pfizer vaccine, which is currently the only vaccine that is administered to Jamaican children 12 years and older.

“What we are seeing this morning is a number of young people who are able to actually access the vaccine for their age group. Once the Pfizer vaccine was available for students, there was a great uptake in that age group, which is what we want to continue to see,” she noted.

“Now that the country is opened up, we see another variant approaching and we want to make sure that the young people who are about going to parties and mingling are still coming in and taking up the vaccine, because they are the ones who are possibly going to be healthier and then go home and affect the older population,” she added.

For his part, Guyonvarch said the donation was “an act of solidarity” with Jamaica in the fight against the virus.

“We are very happy today to see that young people are also getting vaccinated and not only the older people, because vaccine usage is not only protecting you, it’s protecting others, especially the vulnerable ones,” he said.

“We are happy to contribute to better health here in Jamaica and I see that we can work together, because this pandemic has to be fought globally,” the Ambassador added.

Meanwhile, Stein, whose organisation, on April 20, handed over new medical equipment to support the country’s COVID-19 response, underscored the importance of vaccination and keeping up the fight against COVID.

“Despite the fact that we see low-case numbers here in Jamaica right now, we say at PAHO and WHO that it’s too early to let our guard down and the reality is the fact that new waves and new variants of COVID are circulating,” he said.