Guyana to get 80,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine from India next week – Dr Anthony

– 28 new cases recorded

In another week’s time, Guyana will receive a massive donation of COVID-19 vaccines – this time from the Government of India, which has promised some 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the country.
This was revealed by Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Friday.
“The Government of India been generous enough to allocate vaccines to the Caribbean in general. I think they’ve allocated 500,000 doses to the Caribbean and in that allocation, Guyana is going to get 80,000 doses,” the Minister noted.
According to Dr Anthony, these vaccines are expected to arrive in Guyana in the new week.

“We are now working on the exact date and time when those vaccines are going to arrive. But we’re getting a donation from the Government of India of 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” the Health Minister added.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was developed in the United Kingdom and is being manufactured in India by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.
India has already donated 170,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to the Caribbean – 70,000 to Dominica and the remaining 100,000 to Barbados from which Guyana was given a portion.
Guyana rolled out the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine to frontline workers two weeks ago. Those jabs have already been used to vaccinate some 2000 frontline healthcare workers.
Earlier this week, Dr Anthony had said his Ministry would go ahead and administer all the vaccines donated by Barbados as the first dose and await the arrival of follow-up jabs for the second dose.
Meanwhile, Guyana is now awaiting the arrival of some 104,000 vaccines from the COVAX facility, which will arrive sometime next month.
Additionally, the country is also expected to get donations of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which were already given emergency use approvals here in anticipation of their arrival.
Only Thursday, Chairman of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Dr Keith Rowley complained bitterly about Member States being squeezed of accessing the critical jab by big pocket, influential countries.
“We have been literally squeezed out of the access to vaccines… Countries with deep pockets and great influence have contracted the early production of the [Oxford/AstraZeneca] vaccines and similar ones in some of the bigger countries… What we have been experiencing as countries with small pockets… [is that] the large suppliers and the major countries have bought up all the supplies and the suppliers are telling us that they are unable to access orders from us because of their commitment to those who have access those vaccines,” PM Rowley disclosed during a press briefing following the conclusion of a two-day Intersessional Meeting of the Caricom Heads of Government.
In a strongly-worded joint statement on Thursday, Caricom Member States called for equitable access to vaccines in order to curb the impact of the pandemic, protect their citizens and bolster the economy.
While the COVAX facility was established to ensure equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, the regional bloc noted that the allocations under this arrangement are not adequate since each country will only receive jabs for 20 per cent of its population. The COVAX vaccines are slated to roll out in the Caribbean between March and April.
Nevertheless, the Caricom Heads of Government are further calling for a mechanism that allows smaller countries to have commercial access to sufficient vaccines at the earliest juncture.
In the meantime, efforts are on the way to procure vaccines through the African Union’s African Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP) for which each Member State will have to pay.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health on Friday reported 28 new COVID-19 cases from some 763 tests conducted in the last 24 hours in Guyana.
This now takes the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 8513 – 4402 males and 4111 females.
Of these, however, only 373 cases are currently active. These include four patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the other 369 in isolation, that is, 37 persons in institutional quarantine and the remaining 332 persons in home isolation.
Additionally, there are 11 persons in institutional quarantine.
The COVID-19 death toll remains at 195 with the latest fatalities being a 38-year-old male from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazruni) and a 79-year-old female from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) both of whom died on Wednesday while receiving care at medical facilities.
Moreover, the number of persons who have recovered from the life-threatening virus has gone up to 7945 – 55 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
To date, some 63,809 persons have been tested for the novel coronavirus. The Health Minister has since acknowledged that the vast increase in the number of tests conducted is a result of persons travelling, particularly to the United States, being required to get tested.
Of the 28 new cases recorded on Friday, eight were detected in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), 17 in the Demerara-Mahaica region and the remaining three cases in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice).
The figures in the other seven regions – Region One (Barima-Waini), Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), the Cuyuni-Mazaruni region, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) – remained the same.