THE COVAX facility, a global mechanism that was created to ensure the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, has not been able to readily supply countries with vaccines needed to immunise their populations and now it has significantly reduced the number of vaccines it will be giving to Guyana and other Caribbean countries in the initial phase.

On Monday morning, Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony reminded the media that through the COVAX facility, Guyana was expected to receive an initial set of 100,800 Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines. He however noted that last month COVAX told him that a quantity of about 33,000 doses will come first. He did not have concrete information on the exact date of arrival.

On Monday afternoon at a press conference, Dr. Anthony said that he was informed that COVAX has revised that total and said that Guyana can expect 24,000 doses of the vaccine in the first distribution.

“They have not only done this to Guyana, but they have done this to Suriname and some of the other Caribbean countries, where they have constantly reduced the amount of the allocation to these countries and that is worrying for us,” the Health Minister lamented at the press conference.

Amid the pandemic, COVAX emerged as the global effort between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI); Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Gavi; the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). While this facility was created with an ambitious mandate of ensuring equitable distribution of vaccines, which are seen as the exit strategy for countries amid the pandemic, a wider issue of ‘vaccine nationalism’ has overshadowed its work.

The advanced economies of the world have been able to procure and stockpile vaccines–some securing enough to vaccinate their populations more than once, according to reports from American news agency, NPR — while many countries around the world have not been able to procure vaccines as yet, or only in much smaller quantities.

According to allocation figures on Gavi’s website, 15 Caribbean countries will receive just over 2.1 million doses of COVAX vaccines by May. Jamaica was the first Caribbean country to receive vaccines through COVAX; this country received 14,400 doses out of the 124,800 allocated to the country in the initial rollout phase. Importantly, however, Jamaica has engaged COVAX as a self-financing participant.

Guyana, on the other hand, is part of the smaller grouping of Advance Market Commitment (AMC) countries which will receive their first tranche of vaccines for free. While COVAX has now indicated that Guyana will get 24,000 doses first, the rest of the 100,800 batch is expected by the end of May, according to PAHO. Guyana, like many Caribbean countries, has only been able to start its vaccination rollout from vaccine donations. The country received 3,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca doses from Barbados; 20,000 Sinopharm vaccines from China and 80,000 for Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines from India.

“So far, all the vaccines that we have been using are because we have gone to other bilateral arrangements to be able to secure those vaccines for our citizens, and so in a lot of cases we have to buy these vaccines”, Dr. Anthony said at the press conference.

From next week, Guyana is expected to receive weekly consignments of the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia, since the country is paying for 200,000 doses of the vaccine.