Health Minister: Use Pfizer vaccines or lose opportunity for more

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has said if the population does not show an interest in using the recently received Pfizer vaccines, it would have an effect on TT receiving additional vaccines.

Speaking at the ministry’s virtual media briefing on Saturday, Deyalsingh said the gift of vaccines from the US came with a proviso.
“We recently had to dump 260,000 of the previously gifted vaccines. If we don’t use the 75,000 doses or show an appetite to use all or significant portion of these, we would be jeopardising our ability to receive any more vaccines, especially the second part of the tranche of 150,000. I just want to put that on the table that these Pfizer vaccines that the population was clamouring for at one time are here, let us use them.”

He said the rollout of the newly received Pfizer vaccines began at mass vaccination sites on Saturday.
He said the rollout for the 12-18 age group would restart on March 14, as the ministry would be analysing why the uptake had been so low. He said at this point in time, boosters are not needed for this age group.

“Our Extended Programme on Immunization (EPI) unit manager Grace Sookchand, officials at the ministry, and at a ministerial level with Minister Nyan Gadsby-Dolly and myself, we want to do a little analysis as to why the uptake was so low. It is committing a lot of resources to do ten vaccines a day and so on.Nurse Sookchand, along with her counterpart at the Education Ministry, are doing a technical deep-dive into the issue, and based on what we learn, we are going to restart the programme in a better place from March 14.”

Deyalsingh said Tobago had asked for and received 1,200 doses as an initial shipment.

Half of the third promised tranche of Pfizer vaccines – 75,000 – arrived on Thursday making it a total of 684,570 received from the US. This batch expires in June.

Last August, the US donated 305,370 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, while last December, 304,200 doses were donated.

Last month, Deyalsingh told a ministry briefing that the remaining balance of Pfizer due to TT from the US was about 286,000 doses.

He had said with TT's Pfizer stock expiring at the end of February, the government would get a fresh donation of 150,000 doses from the US government, to be delivered in two tranches of 75,000 doses each, the first due within a month, which turned out to be Thursday.

In January, Deyalsingh said TT was also seeking to acquire special paediatric doses of Pfizer vaccine for children 5-11. Dr Rowley said on Friday that vaccines had been acquired and he was looking forward to their arrival.

Deyalsingh said on Saturday that while there is no firm date for the receipt of covid19 vaccines for children 5-11, at this time the ministry would be asking parents to bring their children to be vaccinated as was done with the 12-18 age group.
As of Saturday, just over 700,000 people, out of the 1.4 million population, are vaccinated with either a single dose or two doses of a two-dose covid19 vaccine.