The shipment of 800,000 Sinopharm doses due to arrive in Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday is in transit through Italy.

Chinese Ambassador Fang Qiu made the statement in a Facebook post on Monday. He said, "I’m excited to update that the tranche of 800,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccines procured by the TT government are transiting in Milan, Italy as scheduled and are waiting to be transferred to TT. Looking forward to the arrival of these vaccines tomorrow morning! Are you ready for your shots?”

The shipment of 800,000 doses is the third one of Sinopharm vaccines to arrive. The first shipment of 100,000 vaccines was a gift from the Chinese government which arrived on May 19. The second shipment of 200,000 vaccines was bought by the government and arrived in TT on June 14.

According to the World Health Organization, the Sinopharm vaccine has a 72 per cent efficacy rate against covid19 infection 14 days after the second dose of the vaccine. It has a 79 per cent efficacy against hospitalisation.

CMO Dr Roshan Parasram, speaking at a media conference in May, said Sinopharm is an inactivated vaccine, similar to the flu and polio vaccines.

“It’s an older platform than the mRNA type platform and has been used for many years. It’s a two-dose vaccine and can be stored at two-eight degrees Celsius.

"The second dose is given at an interval of 21-28 days, and WHO has given it an efficacy of 78.1 per cent in preventing severe diseases, in ages 18 and above.

"It is authorised for use in 45 countries across the world, and 65 million doses of this vaccine have been given so far, which is one of the most widely used vaccines in the world. It has good safety and efficacy profiles.”

The vaccine has been approved by the WHO and TT’s Health Ministry for use by breastfeeding mothers. The vaccine was not previously approved for use by this group.

As of Sunday, 134,926 people had received their first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine.