Aruba’s two priority groups will receive their COVID-19 vaccine on location. Group A regards in total 304 emergency medical assistance workers, general practitioners, first aid workers, Health Directorate employees, doctors’ assistants and people doing contact-tracing. Group B consists of some 5,000 residents and staff at elderly homes and other care facilities. For the general public, four central vaccination sites are being designated at Don Bosco Club in Noord, Colegio EPI in Oranjestad, Centro Deportivo Libertador Betico Croes in Santa Cruz, and Santa Teresita Centre in San Nicolas.
ORANJESTAD--Aruba Minister of Public Health Dangui Oduber on Monday announced the details of the island’s vaccination programme, including the order of the target groups that will receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The minister explained that the population has been split into seven target groups: emergency/first-line healthcare workers, residents and personnel of elderly homes and special care homes, persons ages 60 and over with a chronic disease/medical condition, persons ages 18-60 with a chronic disease/medical condition, other healthcare workers, persons ages 60 and over, and everyone ages 18-60.
The first group will be vaccinated as soon as the vaccine arrives in Aruba on or around February 15. Vaccinations of this group will take place at the hospital, the San Nicolas health care centre ImSan and at the family doctors.
The second group, residents and personnel of elderly homes and special care homes, will be vaccinated between February and March. They will be vaccinated at the place where they reside. In the first batch, Aruba will receive the BioNTech/Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines. The AstraZeneca vaccine will become available after that, once it has been approved by the European Union.
Aruba will be divided into four strategic zones to administer the vaccinations: Oranjestad, Noord, Santa Cruz and San Nicolas. The third to seventh target groups will be vaccinated in a designated vaccination centre in one of these four zones. These vaccinations will be administered by public healthcare personnel. By June, everyone should have had the opportunity to get vaccinated, said Oduber.
Both the BioNTech/Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine have to be administered twice per person to be effective. The second BioNTech/Pfizer vaccination takes place 21 days after the first one, while for Moderna the time between the two vaccinations is 28 days. Oduber said both vaccines should protect a person up to a year.
The minister called on the Aruba people to get vaccinated to not only protect themselves and those around them, but to help Aruba move forward. “Let’s help with the recuperation of our economy and our tourism so we can return to some normalcy,” he said.
