By Sue-Ann Wayow
THE Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine has received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorisation for children five years and older but Government officials are awaiting approval from the World Health Organization (WHO) first, before administering it in Trinidad and Tobago.
This is according to Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh.
The Pfizer vaccine is the first to be authorised for use in young children in the US. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still has to sign off on its approval.
The vaccine is currently being administered to persons age 12 and over.
Speaking at the Ministry of Health’s virtual media conference on Saturday, Deyalsingh said, “We rely on WHO.”
He said, “We are not slaves to WHO. When FDA and CDC makes a decision, they make a decision primarily for research done in the United States on their population for their circumstance and whilst the FDA is a very stringent authority, we prefer to rely on WHO because WHO’s data come from 193 countries. It considers much more data sets across different countries, different localities, different ethnic groups, different racial groups, different age groups.”
He said the Pfizer data that went to FDA was done on a trial of 2,000 children but WHO will look at trials conducted with hundreds of thousands or even millions from the 193 member states.
“When we recommend something that is WHO backed, the population can have a lot more confidence that what we are bringing to the people of T&T has been tried and tested in 193 countries,” Deyalsingh said.
He also gave vaccination figures for the 12 to 18 age bracket. The number of all the persons in that cohort is about 90,000.
At the start of the vaccination programme for that age group, Deyalsingh said the numbers started in the 3,000s, then decreased to the 2000s and then to 1000.
He said last Friday just 135 showed up for their first dose.
Deyalsingh said 51,582 have received at least one dose and 41,001 persons have received two shots.
“It started off at 3,500 and yesterday’s figures, we are down to 135,” Deyalsingh said.
