–no reduction in age eligibility for vaccines

AS of Sunday last, the Government of Guyana through the Ministry of Health has administered 142,869 first doses and 5,035 second doses of three COVID-19 vaccinations distributed locally.

This is all part of efforts to vaccinate the population and achieve herd immunity as reiterated by Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony, during his COVID-19 update on Monday.

While the Ministry of Health was optimistic of administering 150,000 first doses of vaccines by the end of the last weekend, Anthony explained that the number of vaccines administered tends to decrease on the weekends, but an increase is expected during the week.
“On the weekends there is usually a drop-off in terms of intake, but during the week that would tend to increase, so we will be expecting that they will be more persons coming forward this week to take the vaccine,” Anthony said.

An increase in the uptake of vaccines has been attributed to the dissemination of information and ministerial visits to various parts of the country, which are intended to encourage citizens to protect themselves and others by taking the vaccine.
On Sunday last, Dr. Anthony and a team of his Cabinet colleagues took to the mining town of Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice), as part of an effort to improve the willingness among the population to take the vaccine, especially since the town has recorded significantly low numbers of doses administered.

“While most regions now would have accounted for maybe 30 per cent or so of their adult population getting their first dose of the vaccine, what we have noticed in Linden, is that there are about 8.6 per cent of the adult population who have received their first dose.
“We ended up, at the end of yesterday [Sunday], with 119 persons taking their first dose, and I think that’s a positive step. This has been the highest so far in the region, where people came out to take their vaccines, and we will continue to encourage persons to come out and get a vaccine,” he added.

To date, Guyana has obtained collectively 265,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca, the Chinese Sinopharm and Russian Sputnik V vaccines, which have been made available countrywide through the national vaccination campaign.
The Ministry of Health in its rolling out of the vaccines to the population has gradually made it available to different age groups, with senior citizens being the first group to receive theirs. The age limit has since been reassessed to include those aged 18 and above.

Dr. Anthony noted, on Monday, that there is no intention to lower the age limit in the immediate term to include younger individuals.
“The reason being is that all the vaccines that we are currently using, they have been tested for people 18 years and above and that is why we have been using this age limit of 18 years and above,” he said.

“There have been clinical trials that they are now doing with lower age groups, but the results of those clinical trials are not currently available because the trials are not completed. So, when those trials are made available and when we review the data then we can make those decisions,” Dr. Anthony related.

The Health Minister explained that children’s reaction to the COVID-19 virus varies from that of adults and that there have not been many cases of severe forms of the disease recorded among children. He noted, however, that they can still spread the virus as adults.

“Children can be carriers of the disease and pass the disease on to adults, so it is important that we also monitor what is happening with children and if they do have symptoms pertaining to COVID-19, that we test them to understand better if they have or don’t have the disease and then if they have the disease, to take all the necessary precautions,” he said.