Covid19 vaccines to arrive on Wednesday

PAULA LINDO AND NARISSA FRASER

A LIVE tracker on the Pan-American Health Organisation's (PAHO) website says the shipment of 33,600 Covax vaccines allocated to Trinidad and Tobago is on its way and will arrive on March 31.

The news on the shipment comes after weeks of uncertainty as to the arrival date of the vaccines. The vaccines are a third of the amount originally planned for the first tranche of vaccines acquired by TT from Covax. The vaccines are AstraZeneca vaccines acquired from SK Bio in South Korea.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said on March 15 that "AstraZeneca is being manufactured in many sites. WHO only approved two under Covax. Those sites are the Serum Institute of India and SK Bio in South Korea. TT will be receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine from South Korea by the end of the month."

Jamaica was the first country in the Caribbean to receive Covax vaccines, a shipment of 144,000 on March 15. Suriname is scheduled to receive 24,000 vaccines tomorrow, while Guyana and Belize will each receive 33,600 vaccines on March 29 and 31 respectively. Thus far, Covax has delivered 2,213,280 doses of the vaccine to 15 countries in the Americas.

While reports from international news agencies are that India will be temporarily halting exports of AstraZeneca vaccines, the Indian High Commission to TT said logistics are being put in place to get the donation of 40,000 vaccines promised to TT. In an e-mailed response to Newsday, the High Commission stated, “The officials of TT and that of the High Commission are working to put the logistics in place and I hope to see the supply in TT at the earliest."

The BBC, Reuters, and the Hindustan Times have all reported that India will be suspending foreign exports because of an increase in domestic cases and the decision to open up the immunisation campaign to everyone over 45 beginning on April 1.

The World Health Organisation’s website said the Covax Facility has notified participating economies that deliveries of covid19 vaccine doses from the Serum Institute of India (SII) will be delayed in March and April owing to the increased demand for covid19 vaccines in India.

It said separately, participating economies in the Covax Facility that have been allocated doses from the AstraZeneca manufacturing network have been notified that some first deliveries anticipated in March will now take place in April.

The Japanese government has also offered TT 100,000 doses of its Sinopharm vaccine, which is expected to get WHO approval in early April. The vaccine offering came as a result of a telephone meeting between Rowley and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

So far, 1,113 people in TT have been vaccinated with vaccines donated by the government of Barbados from a donation of 100,000 vaccines received from India.

The arrival of vaccines in TT will be cause for great relief as the number of covid19 infections have continued to increase over the past few days.

While the number of covid19 cases reported on Thursday is almost half of the previous day, there is still cause for concern. There have been 21 new cases reported from samples taken between March 22 and 24, compared to 38 new cases reported on Wednesday. Of these, one is a recently repatriated person.

The Health Ministry’s update on Thursday said the number of active cases stands at 207. There have been no new deaths, with the death toll now at 141.

There are no patients in stepdown facilities, 243 patients in State quarantine facilities, and 175 people in home self-isolation. On Wednesday there were no patients in step-down facilities, 242 patients in State quarantine and 137 people in home self-isolation. One person was discharged from a public health facility.

There are 11 people in hospital, one less than Wednesday. Of these, there are six people at the Couva Hospital and Multi-Training Facility, with one in the intensive care unit, two at the Caura Hospital and three at the Scarborough Regional Hospital, Fort King George.

The total number of people tested was 107,576, with 50,955 at private facilities.