UNC MP tells Government: Look for alternative vaccine sources

CARONI East MP Dr Rishad Seecheran is questioning whether the Covax facility, through which covid19 vaccines will be allocated to this country, will bring Trinidad and Tobago out of its semi-lockdown.

Given reports of Covax’s cash challenges and inability to meet its goal of two billion doses, Seecheran said Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh must put in place agreements to raise the immunisation levels beyond the 20 per cent targeted by Covax.

Otherwise, Seecheran said, “We as a nation would be in a state of pandemic-induced lockdown as herd immunity would not have been achieved.”

Herd immunity is acquired when most of a population becomes immune to an infectious disease, thus preventing its spread.

Deyalsingh has said TT is expected to receive 120,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford covid19 vaccine by the end of February or early March. This would translate to about 60,000 people being vaccinated, as two doses are required.

On Friday in Parliament, he said TT is talking to four vaccine manufacturers with the object of buying more.

In a statement, Seecheran referred to Barbados’s international request for vaccination for its citizens. Last Tuesday, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that India had agreed to give Barbados 100,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca covid19 vaccines.

Seecheran said that to date, 95 per cent of all vaccinations have taken place in just ten countries and only two low- and middle-income countries have even begun immunisation programmes.

He pointed to reports that Covax, set up by the World Health Organization to avoid the international stampede for vaccines that has accompanied past outbreaks and prevent such imbalances, only secured a fraction of the two billion doses it promised, and is short on cash.

He said Covax needs $6.8 billion in 2021 to achieve its ambitious goal. “Of the approximately 12 billion doses the pharmaceutical industry is expected to produce in fiscal 2021, about nine billion shots have already been reserved by rich countries.

"Amid fears Covax can’t deliver, many developing countries are pulling out entirely or seeking their own private deals with the vaccine manufacturers,” he said.

International reports indicate several Covax signatories, including the UK and Canada
, are directly negotiating their own deals with pharmaceutical companies.

“Some of these richer countries are investing generously in Covax, but at the same time, they're undermining that by taking doses off the market, knowing that demand will outstrip supply.

“Minister Deyalsingh should tell the nation if any other facility for vaccines have been procured, other than TT relying only on the Covax facility and if so, which vaccines, the quantity and the timeline over which we see the delivery of these vaccines."

He said if there are no other means of accessing additional vaccines, Deyalsingh must say if this will affect government's decision to open TT's borders.

Seecheran asked if the government was awaiting the richer nations to control the pandemic, "before they let our nationals in." The Prime Minister has warned of the danger of reopening the borders as the virus is still raging.