Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) is ramp­ing up its ad­vo­ca­cy for eq­ui­table ac­cess to vac­cines for the re­gion as it called on de­vel­oped na­tions with a his­to­ry of tourism to the is­land chain to make some vac­cines avail­able to the Caribbean na­tions.

"We urge de­vel­oped coun­tries, and es­pe­cial­ly those in our neigh­bour­hood whose pop­u­la­tions trav­el fre­quent­ly to our re­gion, and who host our largest di­as­po­ra pop­u­la­tions, to make some avail­able to the Com­mu­ni­ty, ini­tial­ly as an in­ter­im sup­ply giv­en the im­me­di­a­cy of the need," CARI­COM plead­ed in a re­lease on Thurs­day.

The re­lease said CARI­COM was "dis­sat­is­fied and deeply con­cerned about the in­equitable ac­cess to vac­cines for Small De­vel­op­ing States like those of the Com­mu­ni­ty."

"As the virus does not dis­crim­i­nate, ac­cess to vac­cines should not be dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, with a few coun­tries dom­i­nat­ing the mar­ket with their re­sources and their vol­umes," it said.

It al­so not­ed that even coun­tries with the funds to pur­chase have been un­able to pro­cure and re­ceive vac­cines through com­mer­cial arrange­ments, giv­en the rel­a­tive­ly small vol­umes which they seek.

With this in mind, the CO­V­AX fa­cil­i­ty may be the most promis­ing route for mem­ber states to ac­quire the jabs. How­ev­er, it not­ed that while the CO­V­AX Fa­cil­i­ty will pro­vide up to 20 per cent of Mem­bers’ needs, "this lim­it­ed sup­ply will not al­low us to at­tain the re­gion­al herd im­mu­ni­ty, so nec­es­sary to fu­el the re­silient re­cov­ery that we are seek­ing."

To date, it said, the on­ly vac­cines re­ceived in the re­gion were through the gen­eros­i­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia, Naren­dra Mo­di, who do­nat­ed 170,000 vac­cines to Bar­ba­dos and Do­mini­ca through bi-lat­er­al arrange­ments.

CARI­COM once again re­newed its call for "the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) to con­vene a Glob­al Sum­mit to ad­dress ur­gent­ly eq­ui­table ac­cess to COVID-19 vac­cines, par­tic­u­lar­ly for de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, which should be held in the con­text of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s ACT-A Fa­cil­i­ta­tion Coun­cil."

Dur­ing a vir­tu­al me­dia con­fer­ence with the WHO in Gene­va last week, T&T Prime Min­is­ter and CARI­COM Chair­man, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, echoed the sen­ti­ments.