Gail Alexan­der

Cari­com has cit­ed the cul­mi­na­tion of for­mer Cari­com chair­man Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley’s ef­forts to get COVID-19 vac­cines for the re­gion from the US– and the US Gov­ern­ment’s gift of 5.5 mil­lion Pfiz­er vac­cines to Cari­com.

Cari­com is­sued a state­ment on this, stat­ing the vac­cines were “the cul­mi­na­tion of ef­forts ini­ti­at­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley, who as Chair of Cari­com, wrote to Pres­i­dent Joseph Biden of the Unit­ed States ear­li­er this year re­quest­ing a sup­ply of vac­cines for the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Cari­com not­ed Biden sub­se­quent­ly an­nounced the US was do­nat­ing a sup­ply of vac­cines to the re­gion as part of its world-wide dis­tri­b­u­tion of 80 mil­lion dos­es and that US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris al­so spoke with Row­ley in June, con­firm­ing the al­lo­ca­tion to Cari­com.

Fif­teen Cari­com mem­ber states will re­ceive the Pfiz­er vac­cines, with 1.5 mil­lion dos­es be­ing al­lo­cat­ed to Haiti and the oth­er four mil­lion dos­es for dis­tri­b­u­tion among 14 Cari­com coun­tries. T&T re­ceived 305,370 Pfiz­er dos­es on Thurs­day.

The do­na­tion from the White House al­so in­clud­ed three mil­lion an­cil­lary kits con­tain­ing nee­dles, sy­ringes, dilu­ent and oth­er sup­plies which have al­ready been re­ceived.

The do­na­tion by the US fol­lowed months of dis­cus­sions be­tween the US De­part­ment of Health and Hu­man Ser­vices, Pfiz­er, the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) and Cari­com’s Sec­re­tari­at.

“At the be­gin­ning of those dis­cus­sions, the to­tal num­ber of per­sons vac­ci­nat­ed in Cari­com coun­tries stood at a mea­gre 515,000, which em­pha­sis­es the im­por­tance of the do­na­tion by the US Gov­ern­ment,” it said.

Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Am­bas­sador Ir­win LaRocque ex­pressed his ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Biden for his gen­eros­i­ty and to his team at the White House for their com­mit­ment to de­liv­er­ing the vac­cines.

LaRocque added: “These vac­cines would con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the re­gion’s abil­i­ty to con­trol this pan­dem­ic and place the Caribbean on a path to eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery. Im­por­tant­ly, it would al­so al­low for schools to be re-opened giv­en that the Pfiz­er vac­cine has been ap­proved for emer­gency use for chil­dren 12 years and over.”

CARPHA Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Dr Joy St John con­firmed that three mil­lion an­cil­lary kits have al­ready been de­liv­ered, with the sup­port of Caribbean Air­lines and the Cari­com Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem (RSS).

An­oth­er tranche of one mil­lion an­cil­lary kits will be de­liv­ered di­rect­ly by Pfiz­er along with vac­cine ship­ments.

It was not­ed that the cur­rent an­nounce­ment—on­line link for ap­pli­ca­tion and the 800-8222 num­ber—is to make ap­point­ments for the As­traZeneca vac­cine.