– CARPHA head hails regional solidarity during pandemic

THOUGH there have not been any requests from Guyana’s Caribbean sister states, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, has assured that Guyana would examine how it can help those countries with the immunisation of their populations, in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

On Sunday, Guyana received 80,000 doses of the ‘Covishield’ Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from India; this donation adds to the 20,000 Sinopharm vaccines donated by China and the 3,000 donated by Barbados, which means that Guyana has had 103,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines so far.

Since these vaccines are given in two doses, this means that 51,500 persons would get vaccinated. Frontline healthcare workers have been given the first priority for vaccines; the elderly, members of the joint services and teachers are next in line to receive vaccines. When asked by the Guyana Chronicle whether Guyana plans to share any of its vaccines with other Caribbean countries, the Health Minister said, “That is something that we can certainly look at but at this moment we haven’t had any requests.”

He noted that, in addition to the donation made to Guyana, India has plans to donate 570,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to the Caribbean. Since a substantial amount of those donations have already been given to several countries, the Health Minister explained that many of the countries in the region would have received some amount of vaccines to start their immunisation programme.

He also noted that through the COVAX facility, countries will be getting their vaccines soon. COVAX is the global initiative which is geared at accelerating the development and manufacturing of the COVID-19 vaccines, and then providing them in a guaranteed rapid, fair and equitable manner.

“Countries in the region would be getting vaccines; it might not be enough for them to immunise their entire population but certainly for the people who are at risk, they will have vaccines,” Dr. Anthony stated, but added that if there is anyway Guyana can lend its assistance, the country will examine that.

It is important to note that Guyana started its vaccination rollout after Barbados donated 3,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Guyana from its own donation received from India. In a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Executive Director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), Dr. Joy St John, noted that the Caribbean was strategic in how it secured vaccines and then rolled those out before the arrival of the vaccines from COVAX.

“Dominica and Barbados were the first to get big donations from Prime Minister (of India) Narendra Modi, and what they did is that they shared some of their tranches to make sure that other countries in the region have access and could at least immunise the most vulnerable, or the most at risk because of healthcare workers, the frontliners,” Dr. St. John said.

The sharing of vaccines, dubbed Caribbean vaccine solidarity, allowed Caribbean countries to evaluate how ready their local health systems were for the rollout of vaccines, before the larger batches from COVAX arrived. Dr. St. John also noted that there has been this solidarity among the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) also.

“I think the solidarity is just building on the solidarity which would have been in place since the beginning of last year,” the CARPHA Head noted, commending how Caribbean countries have joined hands to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 across the region.