─ replacement of cards to be made easier
The Ministry of Health is currently verifying and reconciling its vaccination data to be better able to keep a record of vaccinated persons.
Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony today, said that data is being collected from a number of vaccination sites for the initiative.
He said during the peak of the vaccination campaign, there were approximately 120 sites, which he noted could have seen a duplication of information.
“So, we are now working that through, to make sure that we don’t have any duplications, so cleaning the data is a very important exercise, and while we are cleaning the data, we are also digitising it so that if somebody would need a replacement card is much easier to be able to go into this electronic data base and to know whether this person has been vaccinated or not,” Dr. Anthony noted.
Currently, if a vaccination card has to be replaced, a manual search has to be conducted, which, Minister Anthony said, is time consuming. The upgrades will automate the process.
Since the vaccination campaign began locally and vaccination mandates were put in place, several persons have been placed before the courts for forging vaccination cards.
“If we discover any forgery, then we will turn that information over to the police so that they can take the relevant actions,” Dr. Anthony cautioned. The exercise is being executed by the ministry’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Surveillance Unit.