–immunisation training ongoing, Dr. Anthony says

THE upgrading of vaccination centres to include freezers and other equipment necessary to maintain the quality of COVID-19 vaccines has already begun, and is anticipated to be completed within two weeks, according to Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony.

The vaccines will be stored in a cold-chain unit, which will be upgraded in order to facilitate the low temperatures needed for the maintenance of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The units usually house vaccines for the regular immunisation programmes, so by expanding them and adding new freezers, the Ministry of Health hopes to create a greater capacity to start the immunisation process for the virus.

“In terms of ‘getting ready’, the physical area for storage of vaccines at those places is going to be our existing sites where we’ve been storing vaccines in all the regions; so we’re expanding those. Once we’re expanding, we’ll be adding the freezers, and in some cases, we’ll have to provide generators to make sure that there aren’t any blackouts and so forth,” Dr. Anthony said.

The minister further detailed that more capacity is necessary to store the doses, since the Guyana Government has not yet received a commitment from the COVAX Facility as to the types of vaccines that will be provided.

The possibility exists that Guyana, among other countries, may receive a mix of different vaccines that need to be stored at different temperatures.

Bearing that in mind, the cold-chain storage is being prepared to accommodate a spectrum of vaccines, including those to be stored at -70, -20 and two to eight degrees. Aside from expanding the physical aspect of the facility, the Ministry of Health is sourcing new freezers to suit these requirements.

“They are on their way, coming into Guyana, but sometimes the logistics of these things can be delayed, so we are hoping that we can get them quite early, because we had put in that order since last year,” Dr. Anthony expressed.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has implemented a National Vaccine Preparedness Plan under the guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO). According to Dr. Anthony, the ministry has been using the plan as a blueprint for the immunisation preparation process.

“We have completed the training manual; we’ve started training the trainers, and a lot of that work has been completed. Now the trainers will be going out to the different regions, and rolling out training to persons who would be involved in the immunisation process at the regional level,” the minister explained.

He assured his audience that the persons involved in the roll-out are very experienced, since the majority of them are already involved in current vaccination efforts, while others are retired personnel.

Dr. Anthony maintained that while most of the training would fall within usual immunisation training procedures, there would no doubt be a difference in certain aspects.

“The difference in the training would be explaining to people the types of vaccines that are available for COVID-19: The temperature requirements; if we’re using the Pfizer vaccine versus the Moderna vaccine, and the difference between the different types of vaccines, like how they should be used, etcetera,” Dr. Anthony stated.

The government is currently working on the printing of forms, booklets and vaccination cards to provide the public with additional information on the COVID-19 vaccines.

The vaccines are expected to become available to Guyana soon.