Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh has indicated that the country does not have H5N1 or bird flu vaccines available for the entire population.
He was speaking at the Caribbean Community’s Meeting of Veterinary Chief Officers at the 25th Anniversary Conference on Monday.
“There is a vaccine, but the vaccines are in such short supply they are not at this time available for widespread public use. But they are available for use by high-risk individuals – farm workers, vets. So, it is there.”
Minister Deyalsingh advised that the population should try to get their seasonal influenza vaccines. He explained why he was making that recommendation in the face of the spreading of the bird flu or H5N1 virus.
“The current scientific data tells us that if a human gets this quadrivalent vaccine, which is effective against H1N1, H3N2, if that human becomes infected with H5N1, the following will happen, and I quote, ‘Getting a flu vaccine right now is still important. Doing so reduces chances of someone becoming infected with both a seasonal influenza strain and an H5N1 strain.'”