The Chinese government has made good on its promise to donate 20,000 doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines to Dominica, and parliamentary representative for Roseau Central Constituency, Melissa Poponne Skerrit, was the first to get vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine. Minister of Public Works, Cassani Laville, also got inoculated with the vaccine immediately after the welcoming ceremony on Thursday.
PM Roosevelt Skerrit expressed gratitude to President Xi Jinping of China for the vaccines and underscored the fact that the gesture is a further testimony of China’s commitment to the welfare and development of Dominica. He noted that China has always remained helpful to Dominica in areas of health, economy, education, and national recovery following natural disasters.
Just two weeks ago, India gifted Dominica with 70,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for 35,000 people; and the recent China’s gift of 20,000 Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines will be sufficient to inoculate 10,000 Dominicans. While the Skerrit-led government is still expecting more vaccines in the near future, Skerrit said the available vaccines in the country are enough to vaccinate 70% of the Dominican population and achieve herd immunity for the country.
“In Dominica, our aim is to have one of the highest rates of inoculation in the world and this addition of 20,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccines from the People’s Republic of China will complement ongoing efforts to help us achieve this goal,” Skerrit said. “Notwithstanding our size, we have faced this covid pandemic head-on with bilateral friends like the People’s Republic of China. But we all know that things could have been a lot different were it not for the assistance of friends like China.”
Health Minister Irving McIntyre noted that the Sinopharm vaccine is effective against COVID-19 and that it is developed with “an inactivated whole virus.” He said the vaccine is even optimistically effective against the new strains of the virus and that it has been successfully tested in countries like Argentina, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where over 60,000 participants took part in its Phase 3 trials without any side effects.
McIntyre said researchers reported that the Sinopharm vaccine has an adjusted 79% efficacy against coronavirus, and that it will be administered in two separate doses for effective results.
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