Guyana has received its third batch of Pfizer vaccines from the COVAX facility – a shipment that amounted to 42,120 doses.
Minister Anthony and members of the diplomatic corps receiving the vaccines
The COVID vaccines arrived at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport on Monday evening in the presence of Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony and stakeholders including United States Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch; British High Commissioner Jane Miller; Canadian High Commissioner, Mark Berman; and Officer in Charge of PAHO/World Health Organisation, Daniel Albert.
“COVAX, as a mechanism, has really worked for developing countries, so not only we have benefitted but many countries across the world would have benefitted from these donations,” Dr Anthony stated.
The Pfizer vaccines are currently being used to vaccinate children between the ages of 12 and 17; and pregnant women. With the continuous increase in infections among pregnant women, the Health Minister called on this subset to take the vaccines. In the meantime, the Health Ministry is seeking to disaggregate the population to detect existing challenges, while working to dispel myths surrounding COVID vaccines.
“The 12 to 17 remains a challenge for us and we’re working to make sure that the out-of-school youths have access and they understand the importance of getting vaccinated. We have a strategy in trying to get that done. We still see a lot of pregnant women who are hesitant to be vaccinated. They have concerns that perhaps if they get the vaccination during pregnancy that somehow it may affect their child. We have been working with the obstetricians to try and dispel those myths,” Dr Anthony said in his brief.
He also highlighted the emergence of the new Omicron variant as a variable that should amplify reasons for vaccination.
“This virus is constantly mutating because it’s how viruses behave and we now have a variant to contend with, that’s Omicron…We are still trying to figure out how that is going to behave but certainly, we have to still take the precautions and those precautions include getting vaccinated.”
The US Ambassador noted that the COVAX mechanism and her Government by extension have donated a significant percentage of vaccines to Guyana’s immunisation campaign.
“This brings the total up now to more than 308,000 vaccines donated through the COVAX mechanism to Guyana and in addition, there have been another 143,000 Pfizer vaccines donated by the United States to Guyana. That donation really helped get the children back in school so we’re proud of that,” the diplomat articulated.
Even with adequate vaccines, Lynch expressed that the onus is upon citizens to save lives by getting vaccinated.
“As we all know, it’s not over. The pandemic continues. The fight’s not over and we need to continue to work very hard to get this across the finish line. We need to now make sure that vaccines turn into vaccination. It is very important that people get vaccinated.”
COVAX is a partnership between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI); Gavi – the Vaccine Alliance; the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The mechanism aims to secure 1.3 billion doses for 92 low- and middle-income countries by the end of the year. Guyana has been included among 10 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that are receiving vaccines at no cost through the Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Thus far, 120,000 AstraZeneca vaccines have been sent to immunise Guyanese.
There were donations of 3000 doses of the AstraZeneca shot from Barbados, 20,000 Sinopharm doses from China, 84,000 AstraZeneca doses from the United Kingdom and another 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India. The country also utilised some 146,250 Pfizer-BioNTech jabs to immunise the adolescent population and pregnant women, after a donation was sent from the United States Government.
Government had procured 400,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines from Dubai and another 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China.
Back in May, Guyana also made a down-payment of approximately US$7.5 million to the African Union for 150,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson jab.
