100,000 doses of Sinopharm to land in Trinidad this week

Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Over 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine have been dispatched for Trinidad and Tobago from Beijing, China. The doses are expected to reach the Caribbean island within this week. Health Minister Terrance Deyalsingh maintained that the doses are safe and can be administered to all over the age of 18, he stated, but the current priority of the government is to inoculate the elderly and the front-line workers of the country. "A certain number of doses from the Sinopharm batch are in fact dedicated to the elderly in homes; it somewhere around 500-700 doses would be allocated to elderly homes," stated health minister Terrance Deyalsingh. Sinopharm, like AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna, also have the EUL certification from the World Health Organizations. Emergency Use Listing is a risk-based system for evaluating and listing unlicensed vaccines, therapeutics and in vitro diagnostics with the final aim of promoting the availability of these products to people impacted by a public health crisis. The opposition United National Congress (UNC) attempted to discourage the public from taking the Sinopharm jab; however, Health Minister Terrance Deyalsingh listed down the efficiency of the vaccine and assured that the dose is safe. As per data, more than 60 countries have authorized the use of Chinese vaccines. The government stated that Sinopharm is also the most widely used vaccine in UAE, and the country claims it is more than 86% effective in preventive severe coronavirus illness. More than 60,000 people have also received the first dose of the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine in Trinidad and Tobago. Health Minister stated that the numbers could be more than 110,000. Huang Xingyuan, Chinese ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, stated that the 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine are a donation from the government of China for the sake of real friendship and solidarity. He stated, "We will fight the pandemic together,"