—18,526 individuals fully immunised, says Health Minister

SOME 161,886 individuals have received their first dose of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm or Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines, since the vaccination campaign against the deadly virus commenced in Guyana. This is according to Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, in his COVID-19 update with the Department of Public Information (DPI), on Thursday. The current number, he said, is equivalent to about 33.3 per cent/one-third of the adult population.
Further, the minister said that a total of 18,526 persons have received both their first and second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, making them fully immunised against the virus. Aside from this development, the Minister of Health has also related that the while there has been a lag in the inoculation rate in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), the region has seen a slight improvement between Wednesday and Thursday.
As a result of the slight “pick-up,” 10 per cent of Region 10’s adult population are now vaccinated.
The vaccination rate in Region 10, however, remains less than that of Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), where some 40 per cent of the adult population has been vaccinated.

To further intensify the campaign and increase the rate of vaccination, health authorities will conduct more outreaches in the coming weeks.
“The place where we’re seeing quite a lot of people [getting vaccinated] is in Georgetown, but we do have sites on the East Bank [of Demerara] and we do have sites on the East Coast [of Demerara]. But we will be doing a lot more outreach work this weekend. I know the teams in the different regions would have been planning outreaches, and so over the weekend, we expect that there will be many more sites,” Dr. Anthony related.
Previously, the Health Minister had said that while the ministry has recorded an increase in the number of younger persons, who have been willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, there is still a large portion of the population who have to be vaccinated.
He added that the ministry will continue to collaborate with private sector entities for timely and efficient administration of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“We want to continue those partnerships, so we’ll be working with a number of companies. Those companies who would have organised for us to get the first dose of the vaccine out, we would like them to help us get out the second vaccine, so that we can ensure that we immunise that working population,” Dr. Anthony said.