Sputnik V-vaccinated Guyanese will be allowed entry into Caribbean countries

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony has assured that Guyanese who have been vaccinated with the Sputnik V coronavirus jabs will be allowed entry into countries across the Caribbean amid travel concerns from the public.
In the COVID-19 briefing on Friday, he noted that with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, all other countries within the Caribbean Community have agreed with this move.
“The countries in the Caribbean have agreed that if you are vaccinated with Sputnik V, they’ll recognise it as a person receiving the vaccine and being fully vaccinated if you have both doses. So that’s not a problem. In the Caribbean, with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, all countries in the Caribbean would have agreed to recognise Sputnik V,” Dr Anthony highlighted.
He acknowledged that talks are still ongoing at various levels on how vaccination would be accepted. In most cases, countries have crafted their individual protocols and requirements for travel and foreigners.
“There are still ongoing discussions about vaccinations, the cards, how vaccines would be recognised and so forth. Those discussions have not been concluded but individual countries have been making decisions that relates to entry there…While there is not global mechanism in place, individual countries have been relying on their own rules.”
As it relates to approval, the World Health Organisation has been inspecting all six plants which manufacture the Sputnik V jabs and upon satisfactorily passing the guidelines, an emergency use listing will be put in place. The vaccine is currently used in 80 countries around the world.
“WHO approved a number of vaccines…but there are also a number of vaccines in the pipeline that are awaiting WHO’s approval. Sputnik is one of those that in the pipeline awaiting WHO approval… WHO would have conducted inspections of the plant where the Sputnik V is being manufactured… That process is ongoing and I guess once they are satisfied they would issue at least the emergency use listing. When that is going happen, we can only depend on WHO to tell us. We don’t know but I guess we will know very soon,” he shared.
When questioned as to how long these antibodies will last, it was pointed out that studies are being conducted to test efficacy and durability. Emerging variants have played a part in this data.
“The studies that are currently being done is to look at vaccinate efficacy and vaccine durability with the antibody response, thinking in the context of the new variants that are emerging. While there are some data available, for all the different variants and all the vaccines you don’t have all the data as yet so I think when we get that we will have more definitive answer.”
Meanwhile, countries are also looking at third doses, specifically for the immunocompromised population. However, this would be conditional and not the entire vaccinated subset.
The Health Minister shared, “Most of the countries that have been thinking about this are considering it for some special circumstances as of now and the special circumstances would be the immunocompromised people. There are patients that would have special conditions and they’re looking at those patients to perhaps give them the booster. As of now, it is not going to be a generalised population kind of thing but maybe for special needs and special population.” (G12)