RISHARD KHAN
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The ship­ment of 40,000 dos­es of CO­V­ISHIELD (Ox­ford-As­traZeneca) COVID-19 vac­cines from In­dia, which were ex­pect­ed to ar­rive on Mon­day, has been de­layed.

This is ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health's Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer of In­sti­tu­tions, Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards.

"We have not re­ceived those vac­cines as yet, but the ac­tu­al im­por­ta­tion date has been de­layed due to ex­ten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances or cir­cum­stances that are be­yond our con­trol," she said, in re­sponse to a ques­tion from Guardian Me­dia at Mon­day's vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence.

"The Min­istry of Health will pro­vide up­dates once a con­firmed date is giv­en," she added.

In an email on Tues­day April 6th, In­dia High Com­mis­sion­er to Trinidad and To­ba­go, H.E. Arun Ku­mar Sahu in­di­cat­ed the dos­es would ar­rive on Mon­day April 12th.

“The Gov­ern­ment of In­dia’s do­na­tion of 40,000 CO­V­ISHIELD vac­cines to Trinidad and To­ba­go is sched­uled to ar­rive in Port-of-Spain on Mon­day 12th April 2021. Nec­es­sary lo­gis­tics have been put in place for its de­liv­ery,” Sahu had said.