Over 120 Mon Repos residents receive 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccine

Over 120 residents of Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara, received their second dose of the Sputnik V vaccine during a community outreach exercise on Saturday.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony has commended the Block 8 Development Group of Mon Repos for responding to the Government’s call to collaborate and promote COVID-19 immunisation.
“It shows the power of working with community groups. Here it is we made that call and we are extremely pleased that this community group here, Block 8 Development Group heeded that call and has been able to work with the Ministry of Health. We have provided the technical personnel, the vaccines, and so forth but they did all the community organising and mobilising of people,” Minister Anthony said.

Minister within the Housing Ministry, Susan Rodrigues held a walkthrough of the community and distributed food hampers to less privileged individuals and families. The Minister said that she too was impressed with the community group’s organisation of the vaccine drive.
“I’m very proud of the efforts that are being put into the vaccination drive from the community itself. This type of community effort, you know, is exemplary and it would be wonderful if this can be replicated throughout the country,” Minister Rodrigues added.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the community group, Karamchand Jaikaran, said that with the pandemic, it was only fitting to support the Government in its quest to achieve herd immunity by ensuring that more than 80 per cent of the population is immunised against COVID-19.

“I have been living in the community for the past 10 years or so and we have a few members who want to do a lot for the community, that’s where we actually started this exercise. Concerning the COVID-19, we realised that vaccination is the only solution we have presently. So, we are going out sensitising the people in the community and even beyond the community to be vaccinated,” he said.
The Block 8 group’s Public Relations Officer, Troy Edmondson, said it has seen quite an overwhelming response from villagers. He added another exercise will be organised soon.
The first person to receive her second dose of the vaccine was Lakshmi Lakshman who disclosed that she had no adverse symptoms after receiving her first dose.
Another resident, Dasmattie Balram, recounted a similar experience. “I’m here for my second dose of the vaccine. The first dose, I did not have no symptom in spite of all the allergies that I have.”
Even as the Government appeals to the public to get vaccinated against COVID-19, it is set to receive two consignments of COVID-19 vaccines this week. The vaccines are being sourced from Russia and through the COVAX facility.