COVAX sent Belize the first shipment of 33,600 doses on March 31st but it wasn't the first allotment this country received. No, that generous donation came from the people of Barbados, 1,000 doses via India on February 24th.
After that Belizean diplomats lobbied their counterparts on the Indian subcontinent. Those efforts yielded another 25,000 doses on March 9th, with a promise of even more to come
But since then, India has gone from vaccine donor to oxygen beggar; the country has seen record numbers of new infections in the past week, and healthcare systems are overwhelmed with a shortage of medical oxygen emerging as the most serious challenge.
Needless to say, the country that helped us to see the light at the end of the tunnel is now facing its own insurmountable challenges and that makes it very unlikely that Belize will be getting any more pandemic time health from them. Dr. Beer was realistic about the situation:
Reporter
"We got the majority of these vaccinations from India, but with everything going on in that country now and we had hope that India would be able to offer us a little bit more, but the way things are it seems that they won't be able to hold our hands like that. Does that put us a worse situation?"
Dr. Natalia Beer, Ministry of Health
"At this point it's not only Belize, it's the world who will be place in a difficult situation if the situation in India continue as is. Our vaccines we received donations from Barbados and those vaccines were from India. We receive a donation from India. Our allocation of vaccines through the Covax is from South Korea, so the next 2 shipments will be from South Korea. It should affect the supply from Covax to access vaccines."
