– Health Minister says

THOUGH many persons are unsure of taking the COVID-19 vaccines once given the chance, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony has opined that since the arrival of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccines last week, more persons are ‘coming round’ and accepting that vaccines are necessary to exit the pandemic.

Last Thursday, Guyana began its rollout of COVID-19 immunisation following the donation of 3,000 doses of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India. Since this is a two-dose vaccine, it means that 1,500 persons will be vaccinated first. And, Guyana has begun vaccinating frontline health workers.

“The uptake has been tremendously good,” Dr. Anthony said during his daily COVID-19 update through the Department of Public Information (DPI).

In fact, he related that the quota of vaccines that were brought to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and the National Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown had to be replenished because an unexpected number of persons showed up.

Adding to Dr. Anthony’s statement was Dr. Mahendra Carpen, Head of Internal Medicine at the GPHC, who highlighted that before the vaccination exercise commenced on Thursday, the Health Ministry had asked departments within the GPHC to submit lists of those persons who wanted to take the vaccine. Those lists, he said, had very few people.

“But, guess what, as soon as the vaccine got here and people started taking it, the line to get the vaccine was far more excessive than the list that was submitted,” Dr. Carpen said, adding: “I have confidence that they will look at the evidence and they will see that the benefits are far more than the risks.”

Dr. Carpen himself took the vaccine himself and stated that the benefits of being vaccinated- i.e., gaining protection from COVID-19- outweighs any potential risks, in his estimation.

A COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy survey was conducted by the Ministry of Health in partnership with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and published on January 25. The survey consisted of 819 persons in total, drawn from the general population across all 10 administrative regions as well as key populations of persons older than 60 years old, health workers, social workers and adolescents.

Though the survey found that most persons believed that vaccines can protect from serious diseases, and that it is important for persons to be vaccinated with these newer COVID-19 vaccines, it stated that there were widespread concerns over the potential side effects of the vaccines.

The analysis revealed that as high as 77.3 per cent of respondents from the general sample mentioned that they have concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine. These concerns were largely about the potential side effects or adverse effects of the vaccine.

But, Dr. Anthony said that the survey does not necessarily reflect how persons feel nowadays. In fact, he pointed out that when that survey was conducted, Guyana did not yet know it would receive the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccines first and, as such, there were many uncertainties about the vaccine rollout.

Additionally, this vaccine received Emergency Use Authorisation from the World Health Organization (WHO) only last week as well.

“Things are moving so fast in this field that every day, information becomes available and a month can seem like a very long time with what is happening in science right now,” the Health Minister highlighted.

Addressing concerns over side effects of the vaccines, the minister explained that there are usually two types of side effects from vaccines, generally. The first type are those common side effects such as soreness at the vaccination site, headaches, mild fevers and fatigue. These side effects, he said, show that your body is reacting to the vaccine which means that your immune system is starting to produce the antibodies to fight off the virus.

The second type, he explained however, are those adverse events which are quite rare. These adverse reactions are usually anaphylactic shocks, which mean that an individual develops an allergic reaction to the vaccine.

“So far we have not had any major adverse events. All we have had is [sic] these things that we expect, which is the site-soreness and so forth,” Dr Anthony said.