NASSAU, BAHAMAS Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Delon Brennen said as The Bahamas continues preparations for a COVID-19 vaccine to be made available in-country, it is likely that The Bahamas will distribute more than one approved vaccine.

During a BAAWMAR panel discussion on the vaccine moderated by Dr Khandra Sears, a board member of the NGO Brennen suggested The Bahamas preference is to access vaccines more suited for its climate and geographic makeup, including those that do not require ultra-low temperatures, which could present transportation challenges.

However, he said the country will remain flexible instead of restrictive.

We are trying not to be restrictive, but we do know that some of the issues being an island nation, being in a tropical setting, being spread out and not being one singular landmass, present particular challenges for us, he said.

And so, we are designing our vaccine deployment strategy around that to be able to make sure that what we bring in-country can be used as efficiently as possible and the vaccines that fit in that criteria are the ones that are more likely to be used in-country.

But it is not going to be one vaccine for the entire country.

We are preparing such that if we receive allocates of one that cant fulfill the entire requirement, well be able to use that one first, and then as we get another one, well still be able to deliver that other one as well and using the advantages of an advanced digital age to be able to track who gets what vaccine, so that if they need two doses, they get two of the same and we pay attention to some of those details.

Asked which vaccine will be made available in The Bahamas and the discussions surrounding that decision, Brennen said as a member state of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), The Bahamas will use the mechanism that goes with approval under WHO in order to decide which vaccines we are going use.

Usually they have a very stringent, regulatory mechanism that is set up for approval in order to make sure that vaccines have been tested and we know the kind of issues that are related to them the cold chain from manufacturing to delivery, he said.

Vaccine in-country all happens in a very systematic way. And so, we use the mechanism to reassure the Bahamian people that what we are doing meets an international standard.

And so, while we are now moving in many of these areas to emergency usage you know WHO uses it as an emergency use listing, places with other stringent regulatory authorities like the [FDA] may use terminology like emergency use authorization but either way, what you are saying is it hasnt gone through what would otherwise be seen as the usual process, but because of the issues of a pandemic, theyve been approved for emergency use.

We are going with a policy decision in-country to use the approval through WHO emergency use listing or another stringent regulatory authority that says we have done the research; we have gotten the information on the vaccine, looked at that data and said it can be approved for emergency use.

And so, there are a number of those that we trust to be able to do so.

And then with some of our Caribbean colleagues, we use the Caribbean Public Health Agency and the regional authority when it comes to reviewing vaccines to be able to ensure that emergency use listing or authorization can now be translated to the jurisdiction based on what is proposed by a manufacture to be sent to us; that it still meets that same level of stringent review that has been done so what has been approved is being sent and in that approach, the thought is we would have built in some levels of safeguards to ensure what we are going to get in-country meets at least that level of scrutiny, so we can assure the people.

The WHO granted emergency use validation to BioNTech-Pfizer last December.

Other country-specific emergency use vaccines such as Moderna and AstraZeneca, among others, continue to be examined by the WHO.

The Bahamas is expected to get access to a COVID-19 vaccinethrough the Pan American Health Organizations COVAX Facilitywithin the first quarter of this year, though that date has yet to be narrowed down.

Last week, Minister of Health Renward Wells said the government plans to order nine vaccine coolers in preparation for the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines in The Bahamas, and will have a vaccine facility that can hold up to 300,000 doses on New Providence and 50,000 doses on Grand Bahama.

The government hasmade a down paymentto secure 80,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, which is expected to vaccinate 20 percent of the population when the vaccine becomes available in-country.

Yesterday, Brennen said while The Bahamas continues to prepare to receive a vaccine in-country, including procuring coolers and a facility to store doses, the need to keep doses at low temperatures does present a little bit of a challenge for us with transporting doses across the archipelago.

While we are putting in place the mechanisms to be able to use those types of vaccines when they become available to the country, like a Pfizer or a Moderna, we also know what would be better in our situation is if we have vaccines that take advantage of the same mechanisms that we have [been] using to keep our vaccination coverage in-country in the 90 to 95 percent range for so many of our antigens that are out there already, he said.

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Brennen: Bahamas likely to access more than one COVID-19 vaccine - EyeWitness News