Guyana likely to be part of COVAX’s “1st wave” rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations

Guyana is likely to receive its first set of COVID-19 vaccines much earlier than anticipated as part of a “first wave” rollout by the COVAX Facility.
This was revealed by Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony during Wednesday’s COVID-19 update.

Dr Anthony explained that while the developed countries were rolling out their vaccination programmes, the rest of the world was looking to follow suit. However, he noted most of the latter countries, like Guyana, were dependent on the COVAX Facility to access the vaccines.
“COVAX has recognised that and COVAX has been making attempts to see how fast they can procure the vaccines and be able to give to countries. They have also, at its most recent meeting, consider doing a first wave of vaccines for various countries and Guyana was one of the countries that were asked to submit proposals to COVAX to participate in this first wave,” he stated.
According to the Health Minister, Guyana has already submitted all the necessary documentation and was now awaiting an answer from COVAX.
“Once we get that answer, there is that possibility of getting vaccines a little bit earlier. It would not be in large quantities, but certainly, we would be able to get some vaccines earlier, but it all depends on COVAX,” he revealed.
Guyana was initially scheduled to receive the COVID-19 vaccines in the second quarter of this year through the COVAX Facility – a body of organisations including the World Health Organisation (WHO) that will ensure there is equal access to and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines when they become available on the market.
However, Dr Anthony had previously disclosed that Guyana could get the vaccines as early as next month through the first wave rollout.
“They have told us that they would like to start [vaccine rollout] earlier… If they’re able to roll out earlier, we’ll expect that some countries would start receiving vaccines as of next month. This would be in very small waves and in small quantities perhaps to test the system to see how the logistics and everything are working. Once that is verified, then we will see larger quantities being rolled out in the second wave,” the Minister explained during Tuesday’s update.
Last week, COVAX announced that it signed an advance purchase agreement with Pfizer for up to 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
COVAX had also confirmed that it would exercise an option – via an existing agreement with the Serum Institute of India (SII) – to receive its first 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University-developed vaccine manufactured by SII.
Of these first 100 million doses, the majority are earmarked for delivery in the first quarter of this year, pending WHO Emergency Use Listing.
Despite this, however, Minister Anthony pointed out that it was unclear which of the vaccines Guyana would be getting, since COVAX was still in negotiations with manufacturers.
“This is an ongoing thing… But they haven’t said to any of the countries these are the sets of vaccines that you’ll be getting and the date when you’d be getting,” he pointed out.
Through COVAX, Guyana is set to receive 20 per cent of the COVID-19 vaccine with the first three per cent to be given to frontline workers and then the second to the elderly population and at-risk persons who have underlying conditions.
Since signing onto the COVAX Facility last year, Guyana has been preparing for the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Regional vaccination centres are being upgraded in every region to accommodate additional freezers and refrigerators for storage of the vaccines. In addition, training is ongoing.
The Health Minister noted that they have recruited a lot of people who would be part of the immunisation team. (G8)