Sidestepping moves rapped

One high-level regional official is accusing larger countries within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) of undermining regional efforts to source COVID-19 vaccines through the African Medical Supplies platform.

Didacus Jules, Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), stopped short of naming the guilty countries, but explained that some of them had gone ahead and ordered their own batch of COVID-19 jabs from the same sources despite the regional effort that was being undertaken.

He was speaking during the opening ceremony of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) 65th annual health research conference on Wednesday, which was held under the theme Pandemic, NCDs and Climate Change – The Caribbean’s Triple Threat.

Jules, a former registrar and chief executive officer of the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), told the forum that he believed countries would have received more vaccine and quicker had it not been for some countries going on their own.

“It was a decision at the CARICOM level that the OECS pharmaceutical procurement, which has in the last 30 years secured US$1 billion worth of drugs and medical supplies for the OECS, at an approximate 15 per cent savings to them, be used as the core mechanism in the CARICOM response mechanism and we were asked to register with the African platform, which we did,” said Jules.

“But then no sooner had we done that, in short time we saw the larger member states going ahead and registering individually with the African platform and this really is an undermining of our regional effort . . . We would have gotten more, better and faster had we maintained a single point of logistical contact,” he said.

In June last year then Chairman of CARICOM Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that CARICOM would be getting some assistance through the African Medical Supplies platform to source vaccines.

Again in January, Mottley said a decision on that would have to be made in a matter of weeks after it was put on the leaders’ agenda that same month.

By April, Jamaica became the first CARICOM member state to access some 75,000 of the inoculations through the African Medical Supplies platform. This was followed closely by Trinidad and Tobago with that government confirming it had ordered over 870,000 of the COVID-19 vaccines through the same platform.

Jules, who made the brief comment on vaccine access, was giving an overview of some of the work done so far by the OECS to assist member states.

He said the OECS Commission was able to mobilise US$15 million in the early stages of the pandemic to help OECS member-states address issues relating to the pandemic.

“In every crisis cash is king. So the OECS Commission pivoted to mobilise financial resources for the procurement of vaccines and other medical material needed to contain and manage what we deemed to be an inevitable outbreak in the region,” he said.

He also pointed out that the OECS was able to receive some assistance from development partners and governments to help member states maintain some social services. (MM)