Village, religious leaders still spreading misinformation about COVID vaccines

…booster uptake lagging in Regions 1, 8, 9, 10

Pockets of unvaccinated persons still exist in some administrative regions due to vaccine hesitancy, mostly linked to misinformation being circulated by religious officials and village leaders.

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Monday highlighted that the authorities have continued efforts to encourage vaccination, but this has been met with some problematic communities.
“There’s a lot of hesitancy and unfortunately, there are persons within these regions who are actively working against vaccination. These are anti-vaxxers. They don’t believe in the benefits of vaccines and they have been constantly undermining the message from the Ministry of Health and other important health authorities. They might have an audience. They peddle a lot of misinformation and that is what people listen to. It can have a detrimental effect on their health if they don’t get vaccinated,” he outlined.
In most cases, it is village leaders or religious officials who are encouraging anti-vaccination. A majority of the persons peddling such information, he added, are not competent to advise villagers accurately on such matters. Despite efforts to educate such individuals, the Minister identified that many are still “obstinate”.
“They have no health background. They don’t even understand how a vaccine works but they spread misinformation. Because they have an audience in these villages, people tend to believe them. They’re supposed to be authority figures in the village. If they are aware of their limitations, then they should not be spreading this type of misinformation.”

Booster uptake
However, with respect to booster doses, a total of 48,669 booster shots have been administered in Guyana: 977 in Region One; 2342 in Region Two; 6843 in Region Three; 24,344 in Region Four; 3018 in Region Five; 8028 in Region Six; 481 in Region Seven; 399 in Region Eight; 1755 in Region Nine; and 483 in Region 10.
The Minister pointed out, “From the doses that have been administered, you can see that in Regions One, Seven, Eight and 10, they’re below 1000 doses. I think there is a lot of room for improvement in these regions. Certainly, they can get past that but we have to encourage more and more people to come in. Generally, the booster rates have been quite low.”
Guyanese were cautioned that although they are fully vaccinated, the circulation of the Omicron variant warrants a booster dose to be fully protected.
“You need to get your booster dose to be fully protected because about five months after your second dose, the antibodies that are circulating in your body drops and therefore, you would not be fully protected. Therefore, it is important that people come out and get their booster doses, especially those older persons.”
He added, “We’re seeing in the hospitals now, persons who are older, coming in and especially those with comorbidities. If you’re fully protected, meaning second and booster doses, we’re not seeing many of those persons coming into the hospital.”
In Guyana, 430,438 adults have taken a first dose or 83.9 per cent. Second doses are at 324,981 or 63.4 per cent. In the 12 to 17 age group, 23,976 or 32.9 per cent have been fully vaccinated.
In the health sector, a large percentage of workers have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. Training for community health workers will continue in 2022, in which the curriculum will cover sensitisation on the importance of vaccination and resources to provide factual information to communities.
“We are working with our community health workers. We had extensive training and that type of training will continue this year. We’re hoping that all the hinterland areas, that we can have at least two community health workers per health centre. That’s the plan.”
“We can make the vaccines accessible. The people on the other side have to also make an effort to come and get vaccinated. This is a two-way process and while we’re making a lot of effort with these things, we need to see that special effort from people,” said the health official.