COVID vaccination for ages 5-11 to roll out in schools this week – Health Minister

With parental consent, the Health Ministry will roll out the COVID-19 vaccination campaign for children between the ages of five and 11 in schools across the country this week.

Some 153 children between the ages of five and 11 were vaccinated on Saturday after the Ministry launched this leg of its COVID immunisation campaign. A number of other doses were also administered for other age groups.
According to Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony, there is a joint committee between the Education and Health Ministries to liaise for COVID vaccination of children. Consent forms have been sent out, allowing for the rollout of the shots in schools. The schools will be determined after reviewing the responses from parents.
“The Ministry of Education would have sent out consent forms to the parents. They have been able to collect a lot of those responses. The schools where we have a higher percentage of response that is positive, we are going into those schools and start vaccination,” Dr Anthony stated.
This week, the Ministry will be in Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); Five (Mahaica-Berbice) and Six (East Berbice-Corentyne). The other regions will follow in the coming week.
Adult vaccination coverage is 442,901 first doses and 342,600 second doses. This is 86.3 per cent and 66.8 per cent, respectively. For the 12 to 17 cohort, 25,500 persons or 35 per cent have been fully immunised. Booster doses account for 66,880 doses.
Parents have been cautioned to get their children immunised against COVID-19 amid the growing number of infections every day, which has sent active cases beyond 1000.
Guyana received a shipment of 52,800 doses of the specially-formulated Pfizer vaccines for this age group last week through a donation from the Government of Spain. Following this donation, the Government organised a vaccination drive at the National Cultural Centre tarmac last Saturday where parents brought out their children to get the jabs.
While children are generally prone to experience a milder form of the infection upon contraction, some have had severe experiences with the disease, and a few have died. This is especially if they are suffering from a comorbid or underlying illness.
Guyana is one of the first countries in this region to acquire the Pfizer vaccines, for children 5-11 years.
In March 2022, authorities had expressed concerns about the potential wastage of these vaccines, if parents do not consent to their children receiving the jabs.
This was in light of the low vaccination uptake for the 12-18 age cohort.
As of June 6, statistics showed that while the majority of the confirmed COVID-19 cases are adults, one-third of the 65,272 cases recorded were children. In March 2022, it was revealed that some 10,078 persons under the age of 19 were infected with COVID since the start of the pandemic – representing 15 per cent of total cases detected in the country.