RISHARD KHAN
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
Today (Friday 30 September 2022) is the last day parents will be able to get a first dose of the paediatric Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for their 5 to 11-year-old children.
The vaccines will expire on October 31, which means a first dose needs to be administered by today, to allow for the minimum three-week dose interval to elapse for the second dose before the medicine goes bad.
In May, 43,200 doses were donated by Spain, but up to Wednesday, September 21, just 3,710 doses were administered. Even if these were, hypothetically, all first doses it would mean over 82 per cent of the stock will be wasted come the end of October.
According to figures given last week by the Minister of Health, Terrence Deyalsingh, 362,138 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were wasted to date because the population did not avail themselves of it before it expired. The doses wasted were the Pfizer-BioNTech's Comirnaty vaccine and Oxford-AstraZeneca.
T&T received 684,970 doses of adult Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines as donations from the United States. However, only 358,885 were administered.
For Oxford-AstraZeneca, T&T received 277,220 through COVAX and donations, but 241,167 were administered.
