Trinidad and Tobago will make an initial request for 50,000 Covid-19 vaccines during a meeting with officials of the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO, and the World Health Organization which is carded to take place today.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh says the  50,000 doses are enough to vaccinate 25,000 people, given the jabs require two doses for maximum protection.

“It’s a two-dose vaccine, one, a primer, and then variant times…it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer…some are three weeks [to a] month. It means we need to reserve the equivalent number of doses so those same people can get their second dose,” he explained during a press briefing on Monday.

“It makes little sense to give a lot of people the vaccine, and then you run out. So… far, the shelf-life of the vaccines seem to be about six months. When you have to reserve vaccines for about three to four weeks…in effect, you really have five months to vaccinate people,” he added.

In addition to the COVAX facility, of which Trinidad and Tobago is a member, Minister Deyalsingh said they are also in talks with external companies such as Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and China’s Sinopharm to procure vaccines bilaterally.

While the initial administering of the vaccine will be reserved for healthcare and other frontline workers and the elderly, the Health Minister clarified that the the vaccine will not be mandatory.