Vaccine inequality creating challenges in safeguarding countries from COVID – Dr Anthony

The evident issue of inequality in COVID vaccine access is one of the main challenges that should be bridged in order for countries to protect their population from the current pandemic, which has stretched on for two years.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony shared this position on Friday as he highlighted the pressing need to curb this setback.
In the COVID update, the Health Minister pointed out that a lot of inequality exists in vaccine accessibility, and, moreover, countries are facing internal challenges ranging from logistical issues to the development of infrastructure to sustain a vaccination programme.
“There still exists a lot of inequality, because the population of different countries vary. Some of them have millions of people in their country and they have not been able to receive enough vaccines for the entire population. So that has been a challenge, and the logistics from moving the vaccines from where it’s manufactured to these countries. Then, within the countries, having the infrastructure to distribute the vaccines. So, they’re varying challenges, and that is why some countries have this lower-than-80 per cent coverage,” he informed.
He added that misinformation and vaccine hesitancy are some other factors which countries continue to face. In Guyana, this has been the case in some regions and communities. Due to hesitancy, Region 10 currently has the lowest vaccination uptake since the jabs were made available here.

“There is also the issue of misinformation, which in itself is referred to as an infodemic, where a lot of misinformation, false information has been circulated. That has contributed to a lot of vaccine hesitancy. There’s lots of factors that’s at play here, but we know that if people are not vaccinated, they are going to have challenges. They’re going to be more vulnerable to COVID, and they can get infected, hospitalized, and die from COVID. We have to make sure that access to vaccines is made available around the globe,” Dr Anthony has said.
The COVAX mechanism was created to close the gap in vaccine access. AMC countries receive vaccines from COVAX free of cost, enabling access for developing countries. Through the self-paying mechanism, nations are procuring vaccines at a lower cost.
Dr Anthony added, “In terms of vaccine inequity, this has been a problem from the very beginning of the vaccination programme, when vaccines first emerged in 2020. Many countries did not have access to it, and because of this, that is why the COVAX mechanism was formed. And with COVAX, they have been able to have two broad categories of countries; those that are termed AMC countries, and self-paying countries.”
On December 10, persons around the globe celebrated International Human Rights Day. The Minister said the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been practised in Guyana, but this can be improved.
“There is a lot of work to be done in the world to ensure that everybody can fully enjoy these rights. In Guyana, we have been working to meet these aspirations, where everyone can enjoy the rights. Certainly, there might be areas where we need to improve, but Guyanese on a whole have enjoyed these rights for many years now.” (G12)