Monkeypox vaccine now in Jamaica

Acting Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Karen Webster-Kerr, has disclosed that the first doses of the monkeypox vaccines are in Jamaica. 

While she could not provide the exact date they arrived, the CMO said they are here and ready to be administered. 

She said the vaccines will be administered based on exposure to the virus. 

“Persons would have to be willing to take it post exposure. We would not get enough to open it up for more than that,” she said. 

The Opposition Spokesman on Health, Dr Morais Guy, recently questioned the health ministry's silence on whether the 3,500 doses, which were due in Jamaica at the end of September, had arrived and called for an update. 

“It is incumbent on the ministry and the minister to inform the nation as to the status of the vaccination programme,” he said in parliament. 

Jamaica has so far recorded 15 monkeypox cases.

Thirteen were locally transmitted and two were imported.

One death remains under investigation.

- Sashana Small

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