No covid19 vaccines for children, says Deyalsingh

WITH schools due to partially reopen next Monday came news that children will not be vaccinated against covid19 when vaccines are shipped to TT, which is expected to take place around March.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh revealed this at his ministry’s virtual media briefing on Monday, when asked of any similarities between now and the 1972 polio outbreak, when thousands of children were inoculated.

He said, “We will not be vaccinating schoolchildren in this phase, simply because there is no trial data that says you could use the vaccines in children under 18. So no schoolchild will be vaccinated; no person under 18 will be vaccinated.”

Otherwise, Deyalsingh said healthcare workers, police and firemen, citizens who are most vulnerable socially and economically and most exposed will be first to get the vaccine.

Also due for vaccination are patients with non-communicable diseases and those with weakened immune systems, that is, the immunocompromised.

The second phase will be mass vaccinations, done at three or four sites, working with the Medical Association, Deyalsingh said.

He said the phased vaccination programme will allow TT to build on its experience and to readily identify any side effects.

Deyalsingh said four storage facilities across TT have chillers which can store 390,000 vaccines, which, with two shots needed per patient, can inoculate 195,000 people.

Pan American Health Organization representative Dr Erica Wheeler said TT meets the requirements of readiness to receive the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, which was rigorously tested by PAHO.

In the question session, Deyalsingh promised patients will be screened for allergies and to see if they are immunocompromised.

Asked about worldwide shortages of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, Deyalsingh said all the vaccines have supply issues, but TT hopes to inoculate 20 per cent of people within a year, or 280,000 people from March 2021-March 2022.

Some 33 per cent of the population will be vaccinated in the long term, he added.