The Trinidad and Tobago-based ANSA McAL Group has announced that it will be partnering with governments in an effort to source vaccines for the markets in which it operates.
In addition, the company said it was positioning itself to purchase vaccines on the open market should that avenue becomes available.
“At the moment, COVID-19 vaccines can only be procured through official government channels. It is our intention to collaborate and partner with ministries of health in the territories in which we operate, that is Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis and Jamaica, to support efforts at funding the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines,” the company said in a statement last weekend.
“All of the Group’s efforts under this initiative will be in tandem with these governments’ established acquisition and distribution plans for the COVID-19 vaccines throughout the population in each territory,” it said.
This came on the heels of an announcement by Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley that her administration would be asking individuals and the private sector to give “donations” to a national vaccine fund.
“In this vaccine journey we are not charging people, but we will be appealing to people to donate to the national vaccine fund at individual and at corporate levels,” Mottley had said.
The company said in its release that it considered availability and uptake of vaccination as a priority to protect the wider population and as essential to the recovery of regional economies.
“Therefore, should the opportunity present itself in the future to source WHO-approved vaccines on the open market through reputable pharmaceutical companies, then ANSA McAL will seek to do so,” it announced.
The group employs approximately 6,000 people, 750 of those in Barbados.
The company said: “The vaccination of employees builds on ANSA McAL’s ongoing public COVID-19 education and awareness campaign – A Small Dose of Hope can Bring us Together, which is aimed at encouraging COVID-19 vaccination uptake as soon as they are made available to the populace over the course of 2021.
“We see this as an opportunity for the private sector to step up and contribute to eradicating this unprecedented public health contagion, which has had an adverse social and economic impact on countries in the region,” it added.
ANSA McAL said as a homegrown regional conglomerate with 140 years serving the region across sectors, it was “duty-bound” to do its part in sharing the burden of responsibility with the public sector.
Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) Ed Clarke told Barbados TODAY in a recent interview that while the private sector awaits details on the proposed national vaccine fund, it stands willing to do what it could to help.
“We don’t know the details yet so we eagerly await more details on that and if we do have to contribute to that we will do so,” said Clarke.
So far, Barbados has sourced some 100,000 vaccines from India and is in line to get a batch from the COVAX Facility in the coming weeks. (MM)
