50,000 doses weekly from month-end until 200,000 received – Health Minister

Sputnik V vaccine

…as another COVID-19 death, 19 new cases recorded

A 69-year-old man from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) has succumbed to COVID-19, making him the 216th death in Guyana.
The Health Ministry shared on Monday that he died while receiving care at a medical facility on Sunday.
From the latest dashboard statistics, there were 19 new cases in one day after 433 samples were sent for analysis. The total number of confirmed cases in the country is now 9668 – 4947 males and 4721 females.
There are 930 active cases: 11 in the designated Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 856 in home isolation and 63 in institutional isolation. Another 11 persons are also in institutional quarantine. The data shows that 8522 patients have recovered from the life-threatening virus while 82,539 have been tested.
Seven new cases were detected in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), nine in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), six in Region Four, one in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), one in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), and one in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
Confirmed cases in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) remain at 1027, 834, 246 and 438 respectively.

Vaccination sites
New vaccination sites are to be introduced across the country throughout this week, bolstering the Health Ministry’s capacity to roll out its COVID-19 vaccination programme.
Speaking during Monday’s COVID-19 update, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony divulged that almost 20,000 persons were inoculated as of Sunday. Dubbing this as a good start to the countrywide vaccine administration, the strategy is to have additional sites in different locations.
“As of yesterday (Sunday), we would have gotten close to 20,000 persons who would have been immunised. I think that’s a good number. As we roll out this week, our plans are that we would increase the amount of sites that we have. We have been able to work with our healthcare workers at the health centre and you see us shifting to a lot of health centres across the country,” the health official outlined.
With the new sites being positioned mainly at health centres, Dr Anthony assured that the health workers are adequately equipped to administer the shots. This will serve as a catalyst to the rate at which vaccines are administered.
“These nurses know how to give vaccines. We have given them additional information pertaining to the two vaccines that we’re currently using and so, we’ll be sending out doses to these health centres so that they can now do the vaccination at health centres. That’s in the process of being rolled out and by doing that, we anticipate that we’ll be able to reach more people closer to where they live.”
Persons over the age of 60 are turning out to vaccination sites to get their jabs. In some regions, almost 100 per cent of healthcare workers have also been covered.
Guyana will now receive a reduced quantity of doses – 25,000 – from the COVAX mechanism, but a date has not been set for its delivery. For the 200,000 Sputnik V vaccines from Russia, tranches of 50,000 will arrive soon. This means a lower age range for eligibility and other frontline groups.
The Minister advised, “We’re also working actively to source vaccines from other sources. Certainly, by the next week, we’re expecting to have at least 50,000 of the Sputnik V vaccine and thereafter, we will be getting at least 50,000 doses every week until we get about 200,000 doses. Over a period of a month, we’ll be getting in these vaccines.”