As soon as a safe vaccination for children becomes available, Government will move towards vaccinating that section of the island’s population.
While Prime Minister Mia Mottley has acknowledged that Barbados has “done well” by so far administering over 75,000 vaccines, she has given the assurance that children will not be left behind in the rollout of the country’s vaccination programme.
She said this was especially important as an increased number of young people were becoming critically ill due to COVID-19.
The current vaccinations on the market are not to be taken by persons under the age of 18.
Mottley said Cuba had already indicated they were at “an advanced stage” with a vaccine for adolescents.
“We have a responsibility to ensure that we can control this and that as many people who want to take vaccines should be allowed to take vaccines and that is why our Government continues to contract and to procure additional vaccines.
“We’re at a stage now where we expect I believe another major shipment and hopefully that will get us to where we need to go with our adult population and now we have then to start to focus on those under 18 with respect to vaccinations, which as you know is still very much in its embryonic stages globally,” Mottley said this morning as the country received its second tranche of 33,600 vaccines from the COVAX Facility.
Mottley also used the opportunity to urge the international community to host a global summit to address the challenges facing some countries in accessing COVID-19 vaccinations.
The Prime Minister, who has repeatedly spoken out about the extreme difficulties facing small-island developing states trying to source vaccines, maintained that the COVID-19 pandemic would not be defeated until there was vaccination equity.
Barbados received the first tranche of 33,600 vaccines on April 6 and is scheduled to receive the final shipment early next month.
“If ever there was a need for the world to stand up and recognize that we need a global summit for coordinated action with respect to how we treat to the global pandemic, how we treat to the equitable distribution of vaccines, how we treat to the restricted movement of people and countries in a coordinated way, to give the global community the best chance of putting this behind us.
“In the meetings that just concluded with the World Bank and the IMF we were clear that there is going to be no serious global recovery economically until we wrestle COVID-19 to the ground. We cannot wrestle COVID-19 to the ground unless there is vaccine equity and unless there is coordinated actions across countries and not by single countries one by one, by one,” Mottley contended.
“I, therefore, use this opportunity this morning first and foremost to remind us at the global level that there is nothing stopping us from a global summit other than us. If ever there was a need for political will in the post-1945 world it is today as we speak. I trust and pray that there will be movement among those of us who have the responsibility to have the charge of our populations under our control as Governments for us to do the right thing and to do it together.”
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
