 a pleasant good day everyone and welcome to the first launch of the immunization campaign. Today we have a panel with us, we have Ministry of Health and also Ministry of Education. We have the Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Blent of Joseph. Also we have the School Safety Officer in the Ministry of Education, Mr. Donas Podra and the Principal Nurse and Officer who is also the former immunization manager, Nurse Julieta Fasius. Welcome. First we'll have Dr. Joseph who will give us a brief overview as it relates to immunization and why is it important to immunize the children. Good morning. Thank you Ms. Fornel for having us delivering such an important message to the general public. The Ministry of Health and Wellness will continue to utilize immunization through vaccination as a key strategy to prevent the spread of vaccine preventable diseases in St. Lucia. Through the extended immunization program within the Ministry of Health and Wellness, vaccination has been mandated as part of the Public Health Act. As such, it is important for persons to understand the need for vaccination. Vaccination is safe, it is effective, and it is a very important strategy used globally to prevent the spread of vaccine preventable diseases. St. Lucia would have made significant stride over the years as it was able to eliminate some of these vaccine preventable diseases. Globally, we have seen the elimination of smallpox during the 1977 period and in St. Lucia we were able to eradicate measles during the 1990 period. We have seen the 2019 period. We have seen during the 2019 the outbreak of measles globally and this was associated with areas or in areas where you have what is known as anti-vaxxers, persons who are against and refuse vaccination. In St. Lucia and many other territories that continue to vaccinate, you did not find or have an outbreak of measles. In 2015 St. Lucia would have had an outbreak of pertussis whooping cough, which is a vaccine preventable disease. However, the age group that was impacted was the group prior to the administration of the pertussis vaccine by a year less than three months of age. We would have made strides in terms of having what is known as a 95% vaccination coverage over the years within our targeted population zero to five years. However, there is need for us to revisit and to ensure that we regain the grounds we would have lost in our immunization strategy. As a result, the government of St. Lucia and the Ministry of Health and Wellness would have prioritized vaccination as a key strategy to prevent the spread of vaccine preventable diseases. This program was launched July, September, 2019, but was interrupted with several activities, including what we have now is the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen the interruption of schools, the avoidance of mass gathering, and all these contributed to interruption in the vaccination program. What we have observed is a fall in our vaccination coverage to 84%. And it is critical that we restore and maintain 95% or above vaccination coverage that will produce what is known as herd immunity. With such a coverage of 95% and greater, you would decrease the risk of the spread of vaccine preventable disease. However, if your coverage is less than 95% and the lower it is, it increases the risk for the imputation and spread of vaccine preventable diseases. We will continue to work with our targeted population zero to five-year-old to ensure our coverage. It is important, as pointed out, to note that vaccination is safe. It is effective. And like other injections, persons may have small irritation at the site of administration once it is an injectable. The ministry will continue to work with and across other agencies, ministries, in a private public partnership, as well as strengthening, in particular, with the ministry of education to ensure the availability and the service that is so essential to prevent vaccine preventable diseases is delivered to the targeted population, children zero to five-year-old. And at this time, I yield for the next intervention. Thank you very much for inviting the ministry of education to be part of this press conference. The ministry of education has had a very healthy partnership with the ministry of health and wellness. And partnering with the ministry of health in this campaign is nothing new to us. Over the years, the ministry of education in partnership with the ministry of health has been doing the immunization of our children entering kindergarten. However, due to COVID-19, this year was very difficult in getting our children immunized before they entered school for the academic year. And so therefore, as we continue the partnership, we continue to see that we want to encourage parents, especially parents of kindergarten, to work with us, to work with the ministry of health as we continue the immunization process in our various schools, our infant and primary schools. The ministry of education continues to make itself available to the ministry of health as it relates to making our schools a healthier place for all of our children. And so this campaign, as it pertains to the public health act as well as the education act, under division three of this act, we see under the admission and attendance of students on the number 28, part D, and I quote, a certificate issued by a registered medical practitioner or the public health authorities is produced indicating that the child has been immunized as may be prescribed by regulations made under this act. So the education act actually speaks to children being vaccinated before they enter school. And so we want to encourage parents again whilst you may not have gotten the opportunity to get your children immunized before the academic year, we want you to partner with your schools by bringing in the health cards to your schools so we can see how many children have been immunized and those who have not been. And for those who have not been, we want to encourage the parents, you can take your child to the nearest wellness center or you can make arrangements with your school and a nurse will come to the school to get your child immunized. You have heard from Dr. Joseph all the benefits and the importance of your child being immunized to be protected from diseases that this immunization can help prevent your child from getting those various illnesses. And so again, we want to encourage parents, please give the support to the ministry of health, give the support to your schools, work with your teachers, work with the principals to ensure that the students get the immunization up to date. Again, we stand committed as a ministry of education in working in partnership with the ministry of health as we look to make our schools a healthier place for all of our children. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now we have with us the principal nurse and officer, nurse Julieta Casius, who will speak about the immunization campaign and what activities will be undertaken. Thank you, Ms. Vanel. Good morning to the team. So as we've heard, so the ministry of health in collaboration with the ministry of education and some of our other community partners, we will be embarking on a vaccination sensitization campaign for the next three months. So there are several activities that has been ongoing and other activities we will be undertaking as time goes by. One of the most critical elements of our campaign was to first work internally to build our national vaccination registry. So with the fantastic help of our health information unit, we have been able to create a new functionality for our vaccine records where we would be able to capture every single child's vaccine record within the ministry of health. And this is very important because we also want to have that partnership with our private sectors as well. So we will be engaging our private pediatricians and we urge you as parents, whether you do go to a private pediatrician or you are accessed at our wellness centers, we rarely would want every single record, child's vaccine record. So it will assist us in more accurately determining what our vaccination coverage is. As you have heard from Dr. Joseph, in terms of our first start of our campaign in 2019, that was interrupted by so many other factors in terms of we had the tropical storm and we had COVID-19, we were not able to adequately meet our objective. So hence the reason why we want to continue with this sensitization campaign this year so we can up our figures and we can more accurately determine what our coverage is to be able to reach our goal of 95% and more coverage. We know as been recommended by PAHO, we need to have our 95% coverage to be able to build enough hood immunity so every single one can be protected. And we don't have to wait on each person, on somebody else to indicate to say here I am not vaccinated but majority of persons are vaccinated so I will be protected. If we all say that then it means that our immunity level will drop and hence we will be able to have an outbreak which we do not want. Right now we know a lot of persons are coming back home, we have tourists coming back home so our country is still very porous. Yes we focus on COVID-19 at the moment, however we do not know what other diseases that may come into our country. So hence the reasons is very important at this point that we ensure all of our children 0 to five year olds are vaccinated. So we will be working with the schools parents we encourage you to bring in your health cards we will be indicating what at what period that the nurses will be present to just come in to review the cards. Our processes will change a bit because of COVID-19 protocols however we cannot reduce our efforts in terms of ensuring that every single child at the school is vaccinated and then we can capture that record on our system. In addition to that we also be conducting some community outreaches so you will be seeing our health team within the various communities. Again you will be told it will be aired as to when this will happen so it will also give you an opportunity I know some persons may not necessarily be comfortable in going to the facilities at this time however we will be coming to you we will be doing our community outreaches in addition to our home visits as well to ensure that the children are covered and they do have all of the required vaccines necessary. In addition to that we also will be having some media discussions again to further sensitize parents on the importance of vaccination particularly at this time and to be able to ensure it gives them an opportunity to be able to access all of the immunization services that would be available. We also will be conducting some or creating rather and distributing some vaccination leaflets again that will speak on the safety and efficacy of vaccines it will address some common questions that parents may have and which will also just give general information on vaccines and why vaccines are important. PSAs will also be aired so this is an opportunity to also look out for the PSAs and so it will give you an indication again on the importance of vaccines and where you can take your child to be vaccinated. So these are some of the activities that we have planned for the month of October and November and again when all of this is done it's all it gives us an opportunity to review all of our vaccine records and so by the by the end of December we'll be able to inform you the public of our coverages and our successes hopefully it can be a very successful campaign and of course we will reap that benefits the benefits of ensuring that every child is vaccinated to ensure that we can reduce any possible outbreaks of any diseases in St. Lucia as it relates to vaccine preventable diseases. So parents again it's an opportunity for you to ensure that your child is up to date with their vaccines. We have created the schedule vaccination schedule it makes it easy to understand the schedules are at the schools the schedule is also in your child's health card so it's easy to follow and to and for you to review yourself and to see whether your child has had all vaccines of course if you are not sure you can call the health center you do not necessarily need to go you can call the facility your closest facility or any facility and to and the healthcare worker will assist you with any questions or uncertainties that you may have so we just want to encourage parents to please again going back to our private our our parents who do take their children to private we want to ensure that we also capture that data so regardless of you going to a private physician private pediatrician we also urge you to come in so that we can get a record of your child's vaccination so it will assist us in creating that national vaccination registry which will not benefit just us as a ministry of health but also benefit you just last week I had an individual call an adult who was actually prepared for university and she was asking for her vaccine records of course she was not born in St Lucia but she did pass through one or two grades of our school system and she and her private practitioner apparently had passed so she wanted a copy of her records and she was asking whether we had unfortunately of course we did not have a record because she didn't pass through our system so again it's a benefit to you parents that when you do need a record and a health record in terms of vaccine record is very important it is something that is useful throughout your lifetime so it's not something just for 0 to 5 or 0 to 12 year old it is something a record that is needed throughout your lifetime because it's always been requested in terms of what is your vaccination status so the benefit of us of us building on that national vaccination registry is extremely important so parents please we urge you to please bring in your cards so that we can review to ensure that your child is completely vaccinated and we can have a vaccine preventable disease free country thank you thank you very much we will now open to questions from the media Solajalford HDS my question is how does the ministry anticipate dealing with any pushback against immunization given the growing mistrust in vaccination and also the perceived link between vaccination and autism in children thanks for such an interesting question first of all we do acknowledge in Saint Lucia they have parents guardian relatives who are not for vaccination we do have a mechanism within the ministry of health and wellness that is linked with the ministry of education that allows the ministry of education to channel those persons to the ministry of health so that within health we have our team that will engage and discuss with those persons the importance of vaccination let them see the reason why their children the children need to have such a vaccination we do know that because of culture we are going to have a challenge but these messages are tailored to meet the cultural and linguistic need of those persons so that channel is there to have that open discussion my last question would be um there are some factions who have already come out against any mandatory vaccination in regards to COVID-19 I know this is in regards to children but since we're this is something that we're dealing with right now if any vaccine is identified in the case of COVID-19 what will be the procedure for that like with all vaccines and vaccination processes in Saint Lucia we have been guided by the science the ministry and by extension Saint Lucia has been working with reputable agencies nationally, regionally and internationally and more so with the Pan American health organization through to the world health organization that provides us with reliable information as it relates to vaccines among other things as such all intervention as it pertains to the use of any approved COVID-19 vaccine will be guided by the science as obtained from those credible sources. I just want to just benefit from this opportunity we are in the flu season so um we know we do have the influence of vaccine that is available so I just want to urge members of the public to use that opportunity to go to the wellness centers the vaccine is available by the end of this week the vaccine will be available at all wellness centers so please members of the public the influence of vaccine is available at the end of this week at all facilities so you are free to go in and be and get your your flu shot so it is available so it is available we are in the flu season we do not want to be compounded again with burden of high increases in in H1N1 high increases in the flu so it's an opportunity to go to your wellness centers and obtain the flu vaccine thank you thank you very much Nostracia for that information so we have come to the end of the press launch I want to thank you so much for taking part thank you