BROOKLYN, NY– The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) has sought to assure members states within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) that the AstraZeneca vaccine has been distributed to fight COVID-19 is not the same version or batch as the one in Europe.
In a statement, the agency said that it is aware that some countries in the European Union have suspended their AstraZeneca vaccination campaign as a result of reports of rare blood coagulation disorders in people who had received the vaccine.
According to CARPHA, the suspension was done as a precautionary measure while a full investigation is conducted into the reports.
“We want to reassure our Member States that CARPHA’s Caribbean Regulatory System (CRS) applies its reliance procedure to verify vaccines with emergency use authorization granted by stringent regulatory authorities of reference.”
The regional health body is encouraging those who have been vaccinated with any of the COVID-19 vaccines available in their country to report adverse events that occur after vaccination to the local health authorities.
“Adverse reactions that happen following immunization with any vaccine need to be fully investigated to rule out various factors, for example, concomitant illnesses, progression of a disease, and batch assessment, before the health authorities make a final decision.”
“CARPHA remains committed to providing technical support and advice and continues to conduct tests for suspected COVID-19 cases for all CARPHA Member States (CMS) routinely as requested.
In collaboration with the University of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus, the agency said it started conducting whole genome sequencing for CARICOM countries in December 2020.
“So far, CARPHA has detected cases of the UK variant in several member states. No cases of the Brazil or South Africa variant have been detected.”
To continue fighting the pandemic, CARPHA said that officials recently met with the Region’s Chief Medical Officers to discuss several public health issues.
“CARPHA continues to work with its regional and international partners and CMS towards a harmonized regional response. The overarching goal is for all countries to control the pandemic by slowing down disease transmission and reducing mortality associated with COVID-19. In this regard, we urge countries to continue ramping up their surveillance capacity to screen, identify, test, isolate rapidly, and trace contacts of new cases supported by public health prevention and control measures of social distancing, wearing masks, and hand hygiene.
We also recognize the important role that the vaccination programs will play and are quite pleased with the countries’ efforts to vaccinate the vulnerable older persons in their population and front-line workers.
CARPHA also noted that the World Health Organization’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) systematically reviews any vaccine safety signals and concerns related to COVID-19 vaccine safety.
“As soon as WHO has gained a full understanding of these events, the findings and any changes to current recommendations will be immediately communicated to regional and international public health partners, which includes CARPHA.”
The WHO states that “Vaccination against COVID-19 will not reduce deaths from other causes. Deaths from other causes will continue to occur, including after vaccination, but causally unrelated.
As of March 9, over 268 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered since the start of the pandemic, based on data reported to WHO by national governments.
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