Almost 200K Fully Vaccinated; Booster Shots Available

Melissa Diaz-Musa

Vaccinations, as the best way to avoid catching COVID or minimizing the symptoms, continue to be the recommendation from the Ministry of Health and Wellness. To date, over two hundred thousand people have received at least one dose of the four vaccines currently available in Belize. Another one hundred thousand are fully vaccinated. While those numbers are great, there is still need for some to get their jabs of the AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Pfizer or Janssen vaccines. And then, you can also get your booster shots earlier.

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Regional Health Manager, Central Health Region

“Trying to put a lot of focus on vaccinations. Now we do know and the general public must be aware at this point that the booster shots are available. We have brought up the booster doses to be given three months after the second dose of a two-dose vaccine and two months after the J&J.  Boosters, from the literature and from research done in other countries, we know that the booster has been helping especially with new variants like the omicron. It still protects us against severe disease and death and so it is something that we want to encourage a lot of people to come in. Now is the time to come in because we have been doing out work; calling businesses, going out by Battlefield Park. But people have become a little bit hesitant because they don’t want to feel unwell from Christmas. But we want that mentally to change and to say now is the time to get your booster because the side effects from the boosters is very common. It’s like when we give our babies at twenty-four hours old; we give them two vaccines already and at that point, if they have a mild fever you know you can give them Tylenol, you can give other medications to help. So if you get your booster, you still have quite a few days for you to feel better especially if we will have more socialising and more exposure, you know that you’ve already received your booster.”