Vaccines from COVAX delayed until July

– Health Ministry sees a decline in 1st-dose uptake

The AstraZeneca vaccines, which were expected to arrive this month via the COVAX mechanism, have been delayed and are now expected to arrive in July.
On Thursday, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony indicated that upon arrival of the vaccines, they would be immediately used in the current vaccination campaign.
“Unfortunately, COVAX has written to us to say that there is delay in that shipment and now they’re scheduled to send those shipments in July. We await from COVAX the specific dates when we will get it in July, and once we get, we will be using it,” the Minister said.
Under the African Union-Caricom agreement, possible dates are being explored to ship these vaccines. Meanwhile, there continues to be a delay on the shipment of Sputnik V second doses.
So far, Guyana has been able to secure 62,400 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from COVAX, with more to arrive to cover a total of 20 per cent of the population. There were donations of 3000 doses of the AstraZeneca shot from Barbados, 20,000 Sinopharm doses from China and another 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India.
Government has procured 400,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines from Dubai. Some 305,000 doses of this have arrived so far and the additional 95,000 are expected to arrive soon. Another 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China will arrive within the next two weeks.
Through an African Union-Caricom Agreement, Guyana is procuring another 148,000 vaccines – a portion of which will include Johnson and Johnson single-dose vaccines.

Decline
Meanwhile, in recent time, the Health Ministry has seen a decline in the number of persons turning up for their first doses, causing officials to examine reasons behind such hesitancy.
To date, 229, 846 persons have received their first vaccine dose – that is 47.2 per cent of the adult population. Approximately 103,029 persons, or 21.2 per cent, have received their second doses. The Regional Health Officers (RHOs) in the various administrative regions have been engaged, to improve these numbers by eliminating doubts which drive vaccine hesitancy.
“In almost all the regions, we have seen a relative decline in first dose vaccination and initially, we thought because of the flood, people were not coming forward, but in some of those areas, the flooding has eased up and we’re not seeing people coming out. We will do some assessment. We have been talking with the RHOs in those regions. They have been reporting that people are a little bit more hesitant, and so, we’ll have to see what is driving that hesitancy and work on maybe demystifying some of the things people have in their minds,” the Health Minister said.
On the other hand, numbers are increasing for second doses. He noted that with just over 20 per cent of people receiving both doses, Guyana is closer to achieving herd immunity. This entails immunising some 80 per cent of the adult population.
“By people having both doses, we’re getting closer to herd immunity. We estimate that we’ll have to get at least 80 per cent of our adult population vaccinated with both doses, so this is a step in the right direction. We’re approximately at 21 per cent. We still have a far way to go, but I think if we work with people and get them to come and get both doses, then Guyana will be much better off…Over the last couple of days, we have seen more persons coming in for second dose and we’ve seen less people coming for first dose. That’s something that we have to encourage: more people to come and get their first dose that is available for everyone,” the Minister outlined.
Regionally, the number of adults vaccinated with their first dose stands at 58.6 per cent for Region One (Barima-Waini); 43.3 per cent for Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); 46.7 per cent for Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); 48.7 per cent for Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); 49.9 per cent for Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); 55.1 per cent for Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); 46.2 per cent for Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); 31.7 per cent for Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), 45.7 per cent for Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and 14.3 per cent for Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
In terms of second doses, statistics show a rate of 20.9 per cent for Region One, 21.7 per cent for Region Two, 19.8 per cent for Region Three, 24 per cent for Region Four, 22.1 per cent for Region Five, 22.2 per cent for Region Six, 16.8 per cent for Region Seven, 11.4 per cent for Region Eight, 16.6 per cent for Region Nine and 5.8 per cent for Region 10.