Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Minister Dr. Amery Browne told the Senate on Tuesday morning that senior officials in his Ministry, as well as Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, have been following up with high level contacts in the United States to secure a vaccine donation.

It comes one day after US President Joe Biden announced that his administration would ship out 80 million doses over the next six weeks, saying “America will never be fully safe while the Covid-19 pandemic is raging globally”.

“The Prime Minister has followed up directly with President Biden, with respect to the provision of vaccines to Caricom and specifically to Trinidad and Tobago, based on the announced initiative from the White House and the administration of the United States,” Dr. Browne told the Senate.

“He has been following up consistently with high-level contacts within the US administration and leading the advocacy with contacts such as Maxine Waters and Bennie Thompson (members of Congress), high-level influential figures in the US administration, as well as with the Atlantic Council, a high level think tank which is very influential in the US system. The Prime Minister has written multiple times to President Biden and has received responses and that communication and engagement is ongoing,” he added.

The donation from the US would include 20 million Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines that would be added to a previously announced donation of 60 million AstraZeneca vaccines.