Guyana to begin giving flu shots, 12,000 doses to arrive soon

As the Government of Guyana works aggressively to ensure the country’s health sector is fully equipped to deal with various health scenarios. The Health Ministry will soon roll out influenza vaccines to citizens – the first of its kind in the country.
This was revealed by health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Monday during the launch of the Health Ministry, Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the International Health Regulations National Focal Point Committee commend two days of consultations to develop Guyana’s 2024 State Party Self-Assessment Annual Report (SPAR).

“And this year, our intention is that we want to start introducing influenza vaccines for healthcare workers, and also for the elderly. And so, we have already started the process and very soon, we’ll have about 12,000 doses of these vaccines coming into the country. And we’ll start rolling out this programme.”
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry is also working to implement disease surveillance among the animal population.
While delivering remarks at the opening ceremony, Dr Anthony revealed that over the past few years the country’s surveillance capabilities were significantly improved through investments made by the Ministry.
“Over the last, I would say, three years, what we have seen is changes in how we do surveillance, changes in how we have improved our labs, and changes in the training that we have offered to the staff that is working in our Ministry, and also changes in terms of collaboration with other agencies…so, think about maybe about two years ago, we did not have a lab, whether it’s at the reference level or at any other level, where we were able to do work for detecting of viruses but now, we have changed that, because we are now able and we have the capability of detecting a series of viruses.”
Dr Anthony said that the Ministry is currently working to develop a robust surveillance system that will cover both animals and humans. This new system he noted will significantly strengthen Guyana’s preparedness for any future pandemic, adding that in most cases viruses are transmitted from animals to humans.
“So, we don’t want to build one surveillance system that is just for infectious diseases. We want to look at one integrated surveillance system that would be in every one of our facilities. We want to use the existing infrastructure of telemedicine, where we have internet connectivity at these 84 sites to enhance how we do surveillance…Apart from looking at surveillance in the human population, we are now looking at how we integrate this with the environment and with animal health.”
The Health Minister added, “we know, of course, that if we are going to work to be ready for a next pandemic, then the likelihood that there would be a shift or a jump from animals, a virus from animals into the human population. And when that jump occurs, we must be able to have systems in place so that we can detect any changes that is occurring. And that is why it’s important to have this integrated surveillance.”
Additionally in relation to surveillance, the Health Minister revealed that with funding from international agencies such as the World bank, the Ministry will be tackling several weak areas.
“In 2023, we had applied to the Pandemic Fund for $15 million and we weren’t successful in 2024, we enhanced our proposals, and we went back to the Pandemic Funds and this time, we were successful. And we partner with the World Bank because apart from us getting US$15 million as grant funding, in partnership with the World Bank, we’ll be borrowing US$7 million and so, this project that we have looked at the deficiencies that we felt were in the system.”