By Sue-Ann Wayow
A BOOSTER-shot programme for the Covid-19 vaccine will be coming soon to the population of Trinidad and Tobago, says Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh.
He made the announcement at the Ministry of Health’s virtual media conference on Monday adding that “now is the time for vigilance.”
Deyalsingh said, “We will be coming to the public very soon, with our booster programme for the 642,105 persons who are already vaccinated.”
Further announcements concerning this programme will be made in next coming days as soon as the ministry acquired operational details, the minister added.
He said with the uncertainty of the virus’s evolution, the Government was putting plans in place to build up a strategic stock knowing at some point in time, they will have to resort to a booster programme.
With the information being shared about the latest variant, the Omicron, it is being recommended that booster shots be available to all.
“I am alerting the country now, to allay the fears of all those persons who are desirous regardless of your diseased state or age that in fact, a booster programme is coming,” Deyalsingh said.
He said at present, there were vaccines in stock “far in excess based on current need and current usage,” totalling almost 700,000 vaccines.
In the past two weeks, 234,000 doses of vaccines were acquired with 84,000 Sinopharm arriving on Saturday and two weeks ago, 150,000 of the Johnson & Johnson one-shot dose.
Deyalsingh said, “Now that the new variant has come to pass, it is now time to revisit our vaccination programme.”
He said, “We knew at some time, that if we did not proactively do this, and we want to keep on protecting our vaccinated population outside of the current programme, we were going to have to launch a booster programme.”
That discussion has been taking place at the Ministry of Health for the past few weeks.
He said that vaccine equity was no longer an issue which the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines were based on to ensure equitable distribution of a vaccine that previously demand outnumbered supply.
“A lot of the vaccination rollout programmes were based on this issue of vaccine inequity and that we should not do certain things because other countries do not have vaccines,” he said, admitting that Trinidad and Tobago was also in such a position.
On Saturday, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram said WHO would be meeting in the first week of December to discuss an additional dose for all persons.
Currently, an additional third or second dose is being administered to persons age 60 and over and those who are immunocompromised.
As at Sunday, the ministry had already administered 21,010 additional primary doses.
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