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The U.S. government said on Wednesday it would deliver nearly 837,000 Pfizer vaccines to Caribbean countries as the resource-constrained region grapples with a spike in COVID-19 cases amid violent anti-vaccine protests.
The Bahamas will receive 397,000 doses followed by Trinidad and Tobago with over 305,000 doses. Barbados will receive 70,200 doses, while 35,100 are planned for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 17,550 for Antigua and 11,700 for Saint Kitts and Nevis.
“The highest priority of the Biden-Harris administration in the Americas today is to manage and end the COVID pandemic and contribute to a fair recovery,” said Juan González, senior director of the Security Council National for the Western Hemisphere.
Used vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were empty at a University of Nevada vaccination center in Las Vegas in January. The US government announced on August 11, 2021 that it would deliver Pfizer vaccines to the Caribbean. (PA)
(PA)
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Thousands of specialized syringes required for the Pfizer vaccine were also donated, officials noting that the donations involved “significant legal and logistical complexity.”
In addition, USAID, which has provided more than $ 28 million to help 14 Caribbean countries fight COVID-19, plans to announce additional funding soon, according to a White House official.
The Caribbean region has reported more than 1.29 million cases and more than 16,000 deaths, with some 10.7 million people vaccinated to date, according to the Caribbean Public Health Agency based in Trinidad.
Among the hardest-hit Caribbean countries is Haiti, which on July 14 received its first vaccine delivery since the start of the pandemic – 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine donated by the United States through the United Nations COVAX program. for low income countries.
The country of more than 11 million people has reported 20,400 confirmed cases and 575 deaths, although experts believe those numbers are seriously underreported due to a widespread lack of testing.
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council told The Associated Press that the United States “will soon be sending a significant amount of additional doses to Haiti”, but no further details were immediately available.
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The US government announcement comes amid recent anti-vaccine protests in Guyana, Antigua and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where the prime minister was hit on the head with a stone last week and was briefly hospitalized.
The Bahamas, Curaçao, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Trinidad and Tobago are among the islands most facing a peak in COVID-19 cases.
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