Deyalsingh slams Kamla for attack on management of COVID-19
Minister of Health, Terrence Deyalsingh, has slammed Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, for her “unprovoked and inflammatory attack” on the Government’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the use of vaccines.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Health Minister said:
“For the record, the COVID-19 vaccines distributed in Trinidad and Tobago—Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson—were all approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) prior to their use, and follow our stated policy to only use WHO-approved vaccines. Our healthcare professionals administered 1,554,804 doses, and it is critical to note that of the 4,444 COVID-19 deaths, 3,960 or 89.1 percent were unvaccinated persons.”
“The specific allegation that ‘hundreds of thousands were given a fake vaccine’—as quoted in a Newsday article dated September 11, 2024—must be condemned,” Deyalsingh stated.
He added: “The assertion that a ‘fake vaccine’ was administered to citizens is an affront to the entire public and private health sector and implies that our doctors and nurses, and other publicly spirited individuals who administered these vaccines, were complicit in a hoax. The allegations made by the Opposition Leader may also suggest that doctors and nurses breached their sacred oaths.”
The Health Minister is calling for a complete retraction of the Opposition Leader’s statements, which he described as “an abuse of freedom of speech”.
“This pattern of malicious politicisation of serious public health matters undermines public trust and confidence and serves no constructive purpose,” he said.
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