Health Minister worried over “slow off” in vaccination among children

…as over 5000 children tested positive for COVID-19 to date

Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has expressed concerns about the sudden “slow off” in children being vaccinated against the deadly novel coronavirus.
“For the children, we initially saw a rapid uptake of the vaccines, and these are the Pfizer vaccines. However, I think over the last week we have started to see a slow off, where not as many children are coming forward to get vaccinated,” said the Health Minister during Monday’s COVID-19 update.
Anthony said that if the vaccination rate among children continues like this, it is going to take a long time for them to safely return to school. To this end, he urged parents to take their children to get vaccinated. The Health Minister added that as pregnant and breastfeeding women become educated about the benefits of the Pfizer vaccine, more of them are coming forward to take their jabs.

He noted that Guyana still has a lot of work to do in terms of vaccination and now is not the time to become complacent. “We need that final push to get the [vaccination] numbers up so that we can get closer to herd immunity,” the Health Minister added. Last week, Dr Anthony announced that Guyana has, in stock, an adequate number of COVID-19 vaccines to achieve herd immunity.
“Herd immunity”, also known as “population immunity”, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.
With the Delta variant of the coronavirus circulating, Dr Anthony said that Guyana must fully immunise at least 90 per cent of its population to reach herd immunity. There are currently 110 vaccination sites across the country. The COVID-19 vaccines available are AstraZeneca (second dose only), Sinopharm, Sputnik V, Pfizer (both first and second doses), and the single-dose Johnson and Johnson.
According to Dr Anthony, the least he can do is continue to encourage persons to get inoculated. “We just have to keep encouraging. I know that there is a lot of nonsense people read on the internet and because of that, they become hesitant. We have some persons locally as well, who have been sharing a lot of misinformation. I think people have to be a bit more discerning and they have to be smart.”
From all the scientific evidence, the Health Minister stressed that the COVID-19 vaccines offer protection and make persons safe from contracting a severe form of the virus that would require hospitalisation. “If you are vaccinated, you will get the milder form of the disease,” he reminded.

Infection among children
As of Sunday, the Health Minister disclosed that 5594 children have tested positive for the coronavirus. And according to him, they range from the 0-4, 5-9, 10-14 age groups, and right up to age 19.
“We are seeing children testing positive, and a subset of them can have complications as we have also seen because if they have underlying issues just like with the adults, when that is compounded with COVID, they can have a more severe form of the infection and that can lead to several problems.”
He explained that when children become infected with COVID-19, they would contract a milder form of the disease. He also dismissed reports that children cannot become infected as being “far from the truth.”
Anthony also addressed multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which according to Mayo Clinic, is a serious condition that appears to be linked to coronavirus disease.
Anthony confirmed that there has been no case of MIS-C in Guyana yet, and although it is a very rare condition, it is something health workers have been constantly looking out for.
He explained that MIS-C is something that was first observed in Europe and since then paediatrics around the world have been asked to keep a close eye on it. “When children test positive for COVID, or even if they have a history of COVID, you have to look out for the signs and symptoms of MIS-C.”
The WHO has set aside six criteria that should be met for a diagnosis of MIS-C, he said.

Significant drop
Meanwhile, Anthony reported that there has been a significant drop in the number of COVID-19 cases. There are presently 92 persons hospitalised at various hospitals countrywide.
Fifty-nine of these persons are at the Infectious Disease Hospital. Of these 59 persons, 22 of them are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), while there are four maternal cases at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
While there are sufficient vaccines available, the Health Minister, again, said that persons are not returning for their second dose. Considering this, he pleaded with them to do so.
“What we are seeing is that persons have received their first dose vaccine, but they are not coming back for their second dose, and we want to encourage those persons who have received a first dose to come forward and get their second dose…”
“We have vaccines that are available, and we want to make sure that people come and get vaccinated because if they don’t then we are going to have where the unvaccinated persons are the ones who are predominantly ending up getting sick with COVID, ending up in the hospital and of those, some of them are dying because they have not been vaccinated,” he added.
Additionally, the Minister revealed that there are persons who have not even taken the first dose of a vaccine. “We still have a number of persons who should come forward to get their first dose vaccines, and in every region we’re still not at that 80 per cent, except for Region Four, where we are at 82 something per cent, all other regions are below 80 per cent. Therefore, there is still a lot of room for persons to come forward and get one of the COVID-19 vaccines,” the Health Minister said. (G1)