Home News 2 tranches of COVID-19 vaccines expected in December
The Guyana Government is expecting two tranches of COVID-19 vaccines in December.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Monday noted that they are working with the COVAX mechanism to facilitate these shipments within the new month. The jabs currently being looked at includes Pfizer, AstraZeneca; and Johnson and Johnson.
“We are expecting some vaccines. We are working with COVAX and in December, we are expecting two sets of vaccines coming in. The exact dates, we don’t know them as yet but we were promised that during December, we’ll be able to get these vaccines,” said Dr Anthony.
The last tranche of vaccines to arrive through the COVAX mechanism was 100,620 doses of Pfizer in October. So far, Guyana has been able to secure over 150,000 doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines from COVAX.
COVAX is a partnership between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI); Gavi – the Vaccine Alliance; the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The mechanism aims to secure 1.3 billion doses for 92 low- and middle-income countries by the end of the year. Guyana has been included among 10 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that are receiving vaccines at no cost through the Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Thus far, 120,000 AstraZeneca vaccines have been sent to immunise Guyanese.
There were donations of 3000 doses of the AstraZeneca shot from Barbados, 20,000 Sinopharm doses from China, 84,000 AstraZeneca doses from the United Kingdom and another 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India. The country also utilised some 146,250 Pfizer-BioNTech jabs to immunise the adolescent population and pregnant women, after a donation was sent from the United States Government.
The Government had procured 400,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines from Dubai and another 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China.
Back in May, Guyana also made a down payment of approximately US$7.5 million to the African Union for 150,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson jab. This arrangement was made through Caricom. The first batch of the United States-made vaccines arrived in Guyana on August 23. This single-dose regimen has proven advantageous for use in hinterland communities.
The vaccines used in Guyana are Sinopharm, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson; and a small quantity of Moderna.