A shipment of 200,000 Sinopharm vaccines is scheduled to arrive in the country on Monday.

It marks the first batch of vaccines which government has purchased from China, after receiving an initial gift of 100,000 doses in May.

In addition to the 200,000 doses arriving at the Piarco International Airport today, government has already paid for 300,000 more doses from China, altogether totaling half a million vaccines.

Chinese Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago Fang Qiu says another shipment is possible as early as next month.

“…As more vaccines are expected to come from China next month, we are confident greater progress will be made with T&T’s mass vaccination program,” Ambassador Qiu tweeted on Sunday. 

Last Wednesday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said while starting the Mid-Year budget debate in the House of Representatives, that government had so far set aside TT $107m for vaccines- of which more than $70m in payments had already been made. 

This, he said, was enough to vaccinate 1.2 million people, or 85% of the population.