HEALTH Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said the report prepared by the covid19 care committee headed by Prof Terence Seemungal, dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, has been completed and handed over to the ministry.

Speaking at the Health Ministry’s covid19 media briefing on Wednesday, Deyalsingh said the report was presented to him on Tuesday.

“The committee asked for an extension up to February 14. They complied with the extension and presented the report to me on Tuesday at 1 pm. On receiving the report, we started a deep dive into it and also simultaneously I sent a copy to the Prime Minister because this was his initiative.

"As far as making it public, the PM is on record, and he announced at a press conference at the Diplomatic Centre, that he will make it public. The timing as to when it will be made public is at the prerogative of the PM.”

On January 15, Dr Rowley announced that Seemungal would lead an eminently qualified five-man committee to review the operations of health care facilities, in light of criticism in some quarters that substandard care was contributing to the large number of covid19 related deaths in the country.

The team included former dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences Prof Emerita Phyllis Pitt-Miller, public health specialist Dr Anton Cumberbatch, consultant anaesthetist and intensive care specialist Dr Vidya Dean and Director, Caribbean Centre for Health Systems, Research and Development, Faculty of Medical Sciences Prof Donald Simeon.

The report was initially supposed to be produced within a week, but the committee asked for a three-week extension.

Deyalsingh said beginning this weekend, the regional health authorities would be going into communities to get parents to vaccinate their children with the MMR vaccine to bring the levels up to the 90 per cent needed for herd immunity.

He said district health visitors will be calling parents to remind them to bring their children to be vaccinated, or going to visit them if need be.

He said consultation would continue on the issue of getting children 5-11 vaccinated with the covid19 vaccine.

He said the Ministry had met with high-level officials at Pfizer earlier in the week to discuss acquiring the vaccine for this age group and TT was well along the way to acquiring doses.