…on a ‘first come, first served’ arrangement – Health Minister
A significant tranche of 50,000 second component Sputnik V jabs has been delivered to Guyana – allowing for persons to be completely immunised against COVID-19.
The vaccines, which arrived at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) onboard an Amerijet aircraft on Monday evening, have been much awaited on amid a delay in the supply chain. As such, thousands of persons were on standby after taking their first dose.
Second component Sputnik V vaccines will be available from today
In Tuesday’s coronavirus update, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said any person would be able to get their second shot of the Russian-manufactured vaccine as of Wednesday.
“What we’re doing is encouraging anyone who required a second dose to come out from tomorrow (Wednesday) at the various sites across the country, so that they can get their second dose Sputnik. We know that there’re a number of persons who are waiting, so what we will be doing is a first come, first served basis; you come out and get your vaccine. so I really want to encourage people to use the opportunity so that you can be fully vaccinated,” the Minister has urged.
Last week amid apprehensions over the global shortage due to rising variants, President Ali reassured that his Government is working assiduously to engage stakeholders to make the vaccines available. In fact, he had promised that every person would get their second dose.
At that time, 80,000 persons were waiting to be inoculated with the second dose of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. These vaccines, a purchase of 400,000 by the state, have been one of the shots used to immunise a majority of the population, along with AstraZeneca and Sinopharm.
Johnson and Johnson have been recently introduced, along with Pfizer, for adolescents.
With questions raised over access to vaccines, the Health Minister outlined that over 100 sites are active across the country.
Due to various storage requirements for certain vaccines, the Ministry cannot offer vaccination at every health centre.
“We don’t have vaccines at every health centre. These vaccines require certain temperature which you should keep them, and so forth; but we have more than 100 different sites across the country, and we have been repeatedly identifying these sites so that people would know and go to these sites to get vaccinated. Access to the vaccine is not a problem, because there are all these sites in the different regions where vaccines are available.”
The Health Ministry has, for the past seven months, been exploring and embarking on various strategies to educate Guyanese on the importance of protecting themselves through immunisation. But the onus is also on citizens to share this encouragement, according to Dr Anthony.
“I don’t know what else we need to do to encourage persons to be vaccinated. We have ads on the television and radio, we have been doing educational campaigns, we have been doing a number of things, and this responsibility or this encouragement to get people vaccinated is not just a Ministry of Health issue. Every one of us who is living in Guyana should encourage people to get vaccinated. This is what is going to get us closer to herd immunity, and help us to reduce infection, hospitalisation and deaths,” he affirmed.
In research published in the prestigious Lancet medical journal, the Sputnik V vaccine has a 91.6 per cent efficacy against the coronavirus. It is awaiting Emergency Use Listing from the World Health Organisation. The WHO says it has delayed approving the jab until a new inspection can be carried out at one of the plants where Sputnik V was manufactured. (G12)
