China to donate 20,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine to Guyana

Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Tuesday announced that China is expected to donate 20,000 doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine to Guyana. The Minister, when asked about the new vaccine, stated that the drug is 79.3 per cent effective.
Thus far, emergency authorisation has been issued to use the vaccine in China and the Caribbean region.
However, these vaccines as well as the 104,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will target frontline workers. As such, the Health Minister has encouraged those persons to take the drug, noting that it will be beneficial in the long run.
According to the Health Minister, taking the vaccine will help to minimise the infection and the chances of a person being hospitalised.
“My advice is that persons who are offered the vaccine should take it … these vaccines call help to prevent all of that,” he said.
Dr Anthony reminded that after the first set of COVID-19 vaccines is administered to frontline health workers, the elderly and persons with underlying health conditions will be targeted next.
The Minister had initially stated that the first doses of the vaccine would have been given to the elderly, and persons with comorbidities but that had to be changed in keeping with protocols developed by COVAX.
“We are making other arrangements to be able to acquire vaccines, and therefore we should have enough vaccines to take care of the elderly and the persons with comorbidities. We are working on those arrangements right now. They haven’t been completed as yet, but we are very optimistic that we will have additional vaccines to be able to cover those persons in those categories,” he said.
Some 22,000 frontline workers are expected to benefit from the vaccines and a total of 52,000 persons will be able to be vaccinated free of cost.