Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Dr Keith Rowley has refused to retract his recent statement in which he compared the unequal distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine to apartheid.

Opposition leader Kamla

Persad-Bissessar accused the government of promoting racial division with the

statement.

According to Rowley, he did not

coin the term ‘vaccine apartheid’ as he explained that the expression has to do

with small countries being left out of the vaccine market and nothing to do

with race.

“I was simply quoting a phrase

that came out of England where reporters in England were talking about vaccines

only being available to the rich, white

countries of the North of the world and not being available to the small

countries elsewhere in the world and they called it ‘vaccine apartheid’ because

only certain people were getting it by certain attributes,” Rowley said.

“This is not a Trinidad problem,

it’s not even a CARICOM problem because 130 countries in the world today have

not got a dose. Ten

countries have got 75 per cent of what has been produced so far,”

he added.

Rowley has received flak from the

Opposition over the slow pace of vaccine supplies.

The Opposition has also taken

issue with what it has phrased as the Government’s hesitancy to ask for

assistance in sourcing vaccines from India.