THE rollout of the first set of vaccines for the virus, COVID-19, is expected to occur within the next few months and, to prepare for that, the training of health personnel to administer and manage the vaccination has been ‘steaming’ ahead.

This was highlighted by Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, during his COVID-19 update with the Department of Public Information (DPI), who indicated that the necessary health personnel have been identified and training has commenced.

The minister also indicated that a National Vaccines Preparedness Plan has been crafted and this has been used as the roadmap to guide the rollout of the vaccines.

The training of health personnel is central to the rollout of these vaccines since each of the vaccines has various requirements including storage, composition, administration, possible side effects and dosage. And, it is not yet known which of the vaccines Guyana will be receiving.

“We have to train personnel to make sure that the people who will be doing the vaccination know what they’re doing,” Dr. Anthony said, adding: “A lot of these people have experience with rolling out vaccines and we’re taking staff who would’ve worked with vaccination programmes before, both at the national level and at the regional level, but we are training them more specifically to deal with the type of COVID vaccines that we’re expecting.”

It is also important to note that these vaccines will be administered to adults, which is not commonly the demographic given vaccines in Guyana. A new immunisation bill that will allow for the vaccination of adults is expected to be presented to the National Assembly in early 2021. Dr. Anthony told the Guyana Chronicle that this bill features an ‘opt-out’ mechanism whereby exemptions can be made for persons who do not wish to be vaccinated.

This will add to the existing Public Health (School children) Immunisation Act, which is an act that makes provision for the immunisation of persons seeking entry into schools and day-care centres.

The health personnel being trained for the rollout of the vaccines will also receive training on the proper recording of the persons who received the vaccines and the information on the vaccines themselves.

In addition to bolstering the human capacity, the Health Minister also related that vaccination sites are currently being expanded to accommodate the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Another crucial area has been the procurement of refrigerators to store the vaccines and generators.

“We’re hoping that we’ll be in a better state of readiness by the end of the month and we get all the pieces coming together,” Dr. Anthony said.