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SOME men in Trinidad and Tobago fear that vaccination against covid19 could render them unable to have an erection, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh told the Senate on Wednesday.
He was replying to a question on notice by Opposition Senator Jearlean John as to ways of investigating the reasons for vaccine hesitancy in TT.
Deyalsingh said vaccine hesitancy was a many-factored issue.
"It has to do with socio-economic condition (and) education levels (but) not to say only the uneducated. There are many educated persons – doctors, lawyers and medical professionals – who are vaccine hesitant.
"One of the main areas, and I thank you for raising the issue, is the young male especially between the ages of 20 and 49, who still believe the vaccine will affect their virility and their manhood and they (think they) can't get an erection."
He said the issue was being addressed one-on-one with young males.
Last September, Deyalsingh was interviewed "live" by US talk show host Trevor Noah and rejected claims by TT-born rapper Nicki Minaj that the covid19 vaccine could cause testicular swelling.
He told senators, "You still have people who believe the vaccine is an invention of Bill Gates because he's planting a chip in you. There's still this talk about the vaccines will make you magnetic. It alters your DNA."
Deyalsingh said a doctor had agreed with him that the solution lies in a one-on-one conversation with the vaccine hesitant.
"We are going out daily (to) businesses that invite us, the Port Authority." He said vaccine hesitancy was a worldwide battle, not just in TT.
Deyalsingh said people 65 years and over were most likely to be interested on vaccination. He said geographically the people most likely to be vaccinated were in the Couva Tabaquite Talparo region, while the most vaccine hesitant area was north central Trinidad.
Earlier, in reply to another listed question by John as to vaccine hesitancy by geographical areas, Deyalsingh said he was disappointed in the vaccination uptake in TT. He chided three opposition politicians as irresponsible in their replies to a reporter's questions about their vaccine status, where two had said they were were unvaccinated and one refused to state his status.
Deyalsingh said a consumer survey in May by Marketing Facts and Opinions (MFO) found only 35 per cent of people in TT were willing to take the vaccine.
However a Carpha survey of Caribbean social media users found 15 per cent were vaccine hesitancy and 11 per cent unwilling to take the vaccine.
An article in the Lancelot Regional Health of the Americas found 62 per cent of people willing to be vaccinated.
He said WHO and Central Statistical Office (CSO) data showed 1.2 million TT nationals were eligible by age to be vaccinated, comprised of 100,000 youngster age 12-18 and 1.1 million adults age 18-plus.
Otherwise Deyalsingh said that based on those people already fully vaccinated, 551,774 people were now eligible for a third injection known as a booster. This was made of 388,629 people who had taken Sinopharm, 115,694 who got AstraZeneca, and 46,451 Johnson and Johnson. Boosters were now freely available at 17 sites across the country on a monthly rolling schedule depending on a person's final primary shot, he added. Deyalsingh said Pfizer primary injections had begun in September, with the Pfizer boosters due to start in March.
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