Citizens urged to get immunised before COVID vaccines expire

– active cases now at 85 after 9 new infections

Assuring that there are adequate COVID-19 vaccines, health authorities are worried that with the current low uptake, the drugs may have to be thrown out, due to the short expiry dates on many.
To this end, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony is urging persons to get vaccinated before the doses currently in stock expire and have to be discarded, resulting in significant wastage.
During Wednesday’s COVID-19 update, he assured that the country has an adequate supply of Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson (J&J), and Pfizer vaccines. Dr Anthony explained that while the Sinopharm vaccines would expire in 2023, the others are due to expire much sooner.
“Many of the other vaccines have relatively short dates, so that’s something that we have to be constantly vigilant of, to make sure that we’re minimising loss due to expiry,” he contended.
Dr Anthony further emphasised that the country would experience significant losses if people continue to reject the vaccines. He assured, nonetheless, that if the vaccines expire and have to be thrown out, the country has arrangements in place to secure more vaccines.
“We have several sources where we can access vaccines. We are still a part of the COVAX arrangements, and many countries have been kind enough to donate vaccines to us… we have been working with countries to get vaccines in Guyana within a timely manner,” the Minister has said.
Additionally, Dr Anthony reassured that there is adequate vaccine storage centrally and regionally across the country.
“We have adequate COVID-19 vaccines. We have adequate storage. You would recall that when we were preparing for these vaccines, we spent a lot of money to develop storage capacity for these vaccines. The vaccines vary in the temperature you ought to keep them, so some of them require refrigeration at minus 70°C. At the time when we were looking for the vaccines, we did not have that capacity, but we built that capacity,” the Health Minister explained.
Guyana commenced its COVID-19 vaccination campaign in February 2021, and has since administered some 439,306 persons, or 85.6 per cent of the adult population, with a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 338,438 persons, or 66 per cent of those 18 years and older, are fully vaccinated.
For the 12-to-17 age group, some 34,435 persons, or 47.2 per cent of that demographic, have received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 25,194 persons, or 34.5 per cent of that demographic, have received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Moreover, a total of 61,042 COVID-19 booster shots have been administered.

New cases
Meanwhile, new statistics released by the Health Ministry on Wednesday showed that nine new COVID-19 cases have been detected within a 24-hour period. With this development, confirmed cases in the country are now at 63,389. Of this, however, only 85 are currently active cases, including eight persons in institutional isolation and the other 77 persons in home isolation.
There are currently, eight persons hospitalised with the virus across the country, but none of them is in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Another 18 persons are also in institutional quarantine.
The COVID-19 death toll in Guyana remains at 1228, while some 62,076 persons have recovered after contracting the life-threatening disease; that is, 22 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Meanwhile, since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Guyana over two years ago, a total of 586,801 tests have been conducted countrywide, and of this, some 29,175 males and 34,214 females were found to be positive. Of the nine new cases recorded on Wednesday, seven were from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) and the remaining two cases were from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo). There was no new case in any of the other eight regions across the country within the reporting 24-hour period.
This declining trend in COVID-19 cases has resulted in the Guyana Government last month removing most restrictions as the country moves to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy. But while mandates such as masking in public and social distancing are no longer in place, health authorities are still encouraging persons to get vaccinated; and for those who are so qualified, to get their booster shots in order to add a layer of protection against the virus.
According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recent figures, some 504,079,039 confirmed cases were reported globally, along with 6,204,155 deaths.
In the Region of the Americas; that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 152,099,658, while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,715,829.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, WHO also reported that a total of 11,324,805,837 doses have been administered worldwide.