The gov­ern­ment of Cana­da is giv­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go over 82,000 dos­es of As­traZeneca vac­cines.

The an­nounce­ment was made via a news re­lease by the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da Wednes­day evening.

The fol­low­ing is the news re­lease:

"Vac­ci­nat­ing the world against COVID-19 is our best chance of end­ing the acute phase of the pan­dem­ic, be­cause no one is safe un­til we are all safe. Cana­da is com­mit­ted to do­ing our part to sup­port eq­ui­table ac­cess to safe and ef­fec­tive COVID-19 vac­cines around the world, in­clud­ing sup­port­ing our re­gion­al part­ners in the Caribbean that have felt the im­pacts of the pan­dem­ic acute­ly.

The Ho­n­ourable Ka­ri­na Gould, Min­is­ter of In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment, to­day an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da will share over 82,000 dos­es of the As­traZeneca vac­cine to Trinidad and To­ba­go via a bi­lat­er­al agree­ment. These are dos­es that had al­ready ar­rived in Cana­da, but are in ex­cess of our do­mes­tic needs. Trinidad and To­ba­go was se­lect­ed to re­ceive these dos­es based on need and the coun­try’s ca­pac­i­ty to de­ploy them im­me­di­ate­ly, min­i­miz­ing wastage, and max­i­miz­ing the pub­lic health im­pact.

These ex­cess dos­es will be de­liv­ered to Trinidad and To­ba­go in the com­ing days, and the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go will man­age the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the vac­cines in ac­cor­dance with man­u­fac­tur­ing guide­lines and pub­lic health best prac­tices.

As an­nounced by the Prime Min­is­ter at the G7 Sum­mit on June 13, 2021, Cana­da’s $1.3 bil­lion con­tri­bu­tion to the ACT Ac­cel­er­a­tor, as part of the $2.5 bil­lion that we have con­tributed to the glob­al fight against the virus, is help­ing to pro­vide 87 mil­lion vac­cine dos­es to de­vel­op­ing coun­tries. The Prime Min­is­ter al­so an­nounced an ini­tial com­mit­ment to share 13 mil­lion dos­es via CO­V­AX. On Ju­ly 12, 2021, Cana­da an­nounced that it would be shar­ing an ad­di­tion­al 17.7 mil­lion dos­es. These dos­es, dis­trib­uted via the CO­V­AX Ad­vance Mar­ket Com­mit­ment (AMC), will help ac­cel­er­ate de­liv­er­ies to low and low­er mid­dle-in­come coun­tries in the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, while al­so help­ing pri­or­i­ty coun­tries in oth­er re­gions.

Cana­da will con­tin­ue to pri­or­i­tize the de­liv­ery of any po­ten­tial ex­cess dos­es through the CO­V­AX AMC, as well as ex­plor­ing oth­er dose shar­ing op­tions, as need­ed, to en­sure vac­cines get to those in need.

Cana­da is al­so match­ing, dol­lar for dol­lar, do­na­tions made by in­di­vid­ual Cana­di­ans to UNICEF Cana­da’s COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion fundrais­ing cam­paign, up to a max­i­mum of $10 mil­lion.

Quotes

“Vac­ci­nat­ing the world against COVID-19 con­tin­ues to be the best strat­e­gy to end the pan­dem­ic. By redi­rect­ing ex­cess dos­es we do not need here in Cana­da, we are sup­port­ing glob­al ef­forts to fight this virus, and en­sur­ing vac­cines get to those in need. Cana­di­ans know that no one is safe un­til every­one is safe.”

- Ka­ri­na Gould, Min­is­ter of In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment

“Since the be­gin­ning of the pan­dem­ic, we’ve worked to en­sure every Cana­di­an who wants a vac­cine can get one. While we con­tin­ue our vac­cine roll­out, we must al­so make sure the rest of the world has ac­cess to safe and ef­fec­tive COVID-19 vac­cines. To­day’s do­na­tion to Trinidad & To­ba­go will pro­vide ex­cess dos­es to those most in need, pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties around the world.”

-Pat­ty Ha­j­du, Min­is­ter of Health

Quick facts

The Caribbean re­gion is im­por­tant to Cana­da due to ge­o­graph­ic prox­im­i­ty and long stand­ing his­tor­i­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­clud­ing in pub­lic health. Trinidad and To­ba­go is a key part­ner for Cana­da, with more than 100,000 Cana­di­ans with con­nec­tions to the coun­try, and many thou­sands of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans with con­nec­tions to Cana­da.

The match­ing fund cam­paign, called “Give A Vax,” will run to Sep­tem­ber 6, 2021.

Cana­da is com­mit­ted to play­ing its part to en­sure that the rest of the world has ac­cess to safe and ef­fec­tive COVID-19 vac­cines, and we will con­tin­ue to ex­plore oth­er op­tions for do­na­tions as nec­es­sary should ad­di­tion­al dos­es be­come avail­able.