St. Vincent and the Grenadines, along with Barbados and several Eastern Caribbean Countries who signed agreements with the COVAX Facility have been informed of the indicative allocation of COVID19 vaccines.
The Health Services Sub-Committee of the National Emergency Committee says St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ allocation is for 45,600 indicative doses of AstraZeneca.
This means that St. Vincent and the Grenadines can expect to receive the COVID-19 vaccine(s) over the coming few weeks. The vaccines are the first of the assigned doses to satisfy COVAX’s agreement with this country.
The COVAX facility has advised that vaccines will be delivered effective mid to late February with 357, 600 doses of the AstraZeneca AZD1222 vaccine, to Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The allocation was determined by the World Health Organization (WHO) panel of experts and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, GAVI, taking a big step towards equal access to COVID-19 vaccines.
The main objective of this allocation is for countries to begin vaccinating their priority populations as quickly as possible.
Minister of Health St Clair Prince said this development is a significant boost in this country s fight against the disease and the safety of the population, and a transformative complement to the measures already in place in the COVID-19 response.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Simone Keizer-Beache noted that the allocation of 45,600 AstraZenea COVID vaccines to SVG with 25% being available in the first quarter, is an extremely important development in the battle to control the spread of COVID-19 in SVG and to return to some level of normalcy.
The CMO explained that: even as the Ministry of Health awaits the actual receipt of these vaccines from Covax, it is cognizant of the need to procure additional vaccines to adequately implement phase I of the national vaccination introduction and deployment plan.
