–says Health Minister

WITH lingering concerns over the increase in the number of persons hospitalised with the more severe symptoms of COVID-19, leading to an increase in the number of deaths, Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, has advised that hospitalisations can be avoided if persons take their vaccine.
“We have seen that a number of persons have been hospitalised in Guyana and those hospitalisations could have been avoided if those persons were fully vaccinated. We also had a lot of deaths in Guyana and if you had been fully vaccinated, some of those deaths would have been prevented,” the minister said.
Further, he reasoned: “It is important that people get their vaccine because it is actually going to protect you from getting the more serious forms of the disease, prevent you from getting hospitalised and prevent you from dying.” Using the Town of Linden as an example, on Thursday morning, during his daily COVID-19 update, Dr. Anthony said that there are five persons currently hospitalised with the more severe symptoms. Had those persons received their COVID-19 vaccines, hospitalisation could have been prevented.

“We’ve seen that Region Ten (where Linden is located) is one of the regions that did not have a high uptake of vaccines and we are working with different people in the region to see how we can increase that uptake,” Dr. Anthony said. He, however, acknowledged that once persons are convinced of the efficacy of the vaccines, they will be more inclined to come forward and get those.
Guyana has been using three vaccines: The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, manufactured by the Serum Institute in India; the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines and the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.
Clinical trials have found that the Sputnik V vaccine has an efficacy of about 92 per cent, while the Sinopharm vaccine has an efficacy of 79.4 per cent. The Oxford-AstraZeneca, on the other hand, has an efficacy of about 82.4 per cent once the second dose is administered after about eight to 12 weeks.
Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony also highlighted that the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) has deployed 400 ranks to aid in the countrywide vaccination effort. The medical personnel will assist directly with vaccination, while others will assist with registration and engagement.
The deployment of these personnel, Dr. Anthony said, contribute to an acceleration in the rollout of vaccines.