–over 12 per cent of adult population fully vaccinated, says Health Minister

GUYANA has not recorded any instances where vaccinated persons have contracted the novel coronavirus, according to Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony.
“For all those persons that have been fully immunised, we haven’t had any report of anyone getting sick and there is no one who died from COVID…persons might (have) died from other things, but not COVID,” Dr. Anthony said during Tuesday’s edition of the COVID-19 update.
He said that more than 100 vaccination sites have been set up all across the country, and some 12 per cent of Guyana’s adult population have already been fully immunised.
This figure, he noted, accounts for exactly 58,380 Guyanese who have received both doses of one of the three COVID-19 vaccines available in Guyana, be it the Sinopharm, the Sputnik V, or the AstraZeneca.

He informed the Department of Public Information that there are an additional 187,234 persons who have so far received the first dose of their vaccine, and are awaiting their second jab. These persons represent an estimated 38.4 per cent of the country’s adult population.
In relation to specific regions, Dr. Anthony said that Region Six has been leading with an impressive 45 per cent of its adult population being fully vaccinated. On the other hand, only 11.3 per cent of persons in Linden, Region Ten, have been vaccinated.
Also behind on vaccinations are Regions One, Seven and Eight; however, Minister Anthony said that community and religious leaders are being mobilised as part of an awareness outreach to promote the vaccines and their efficacy.

“There are still some pockets of hesitancy found throughout those regions. As fast as we identify communities that are hesitant, we try to find what is causing the hesitancy and apply the appropriate methodology,” Dr Anthony said.
Meanwhile, although the people of Region Nine are battling with the effects of flooding, they are still capitalising on opportunities to become vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony has informed that notwithstanding the flood waters, medical teams have been deployed to the region and are now on the ground performing “double duty,” as they respond not only to COVID-19, but also other health issues and illnesses caused by the flood.

“With flooding, you have water sources that can become contaminated; we can see possibly, if people are not taking precautions, diarrhoeal diseases, so our health team in the different health posts and so are on the lookout for this but despite all these challenges, they are still rolling out vaccination,” Dr. Anthony said.
All government officials, including President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, and Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, have been stressing the need for Guyanese to take their vaccines.
It has been said time and again that if the world wants to return to some levels of normalcy, the vaccines are key and achieving herd immunity is the only way out of the pandemic.
Herd immunity refers to the vaccination of large portions of the population.  For Guyana to achieve this, at least 80 per cent of the adult population needs to be vaccinated.