By Chantalé Fletcher
FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert says government is expected to spend $107 million in the acquisition of vaccines for fiscal year 2021.
He was speaking at a virtual press conference on Tuesday
Imbert said, “We have already spent US$10.3 million, that is on the COVAX facility, so there was an initial payment of about US$1.5 million (for) last year.”
He explained, “To get involved in COVAX, you had to put this money as a deposit that went towards research and development of the vaccines.”
“So, all the countries in the COVAX alliance were asked to contribute (US) $1.5 million for that. Then, we purchased just over, 100,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from COVAX in three tranches. And we’ve also paid for 500,000 Sinopharn vaccines in full.” Imbert said.
He said a down payment for an initial 600,000 doses of Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccines was made, which was later upgraded to 800,000 doses from the Africa Vaccination Acquisition Trust (AVAT).
Imbert said there was a total of 200,000 AstraZeneca vaccines.
He said, “One hundred thousand doses were paid for while another 100,000 was donated from various sources.”
Imbert said, T&T also received 40,000 doses from India and “quite a lot from the Caribbean.”
He said, “So that’s 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca, 600,000 doses of Sinopharn in which 100,000 was donated and 500,000 was paid for, and is equivalent to 800,000 two-shot, two dose vaccines which vaccinates 400,00 people. In addition, the 800,000 doses of single-shot Johnson and Johnson equivalent to 800,000 people.”
Imbert said, “So if you take the 400,000 people who will be vaccinated with the two dose, and 800,000 who will be vaccinated with the single dose; you get 1.2 million people.”
He stated that US$10.3 million is estimated to be TT$70 million. He said the balance of US$5.4 million in payment to AVAT was equal to $36 million.
Imbert said, “If you take the $70 million spent on vaccines and the $36 million we still have to spend; you will get a total of $107 million,” estimated to be spent in this fiscal year.
The minister said, “If everything goes to plan, then the vaccines from AVAT will come in August and we will start to make the final payments for them.”
