THE Regional Health Services of Region Six(East Berbice-Corentyne) on Saturday held its first vaccination ‘Drive-Thru’ initiative which attracted over 300 residents at the Classic Hotel Tarmac, Corriverton. Director of Regional Health Services Dr. Vishalya Sharma told the Guyana Chronicle that the response from residents was very encouraging. The vaccination team which included Dr. Ryan Campbell, Dr. Giresh Sadeo and Nurse Marcy Gill worked late into the evening and managed to surpass the target which was set at 200.
Dr. Sharma said the aim of the drive was to make the vaccines easily accessible to all. She said more such activities are being planned for New Amsterdam and Corentyne in the coming days.
‘‘The whole point is to make ways for the vaccines to become accessible and easy for the residents of Region Six. We noticed a lot of the persons not only used their vehicles, but [also] bicycles and motorcycles,” she said.

To date, Region Six has successfully hosted over 100 mobile vaccination drives at various locations throughout the region, and the number of persons vaccinated so far represents almost 48 per cent per cent of the region’s population of persons 18 years and older.
Even though the vaccination drives have been successful, Dr. Sharma said many more persons are yet to be vaccinated and should try to take their shots as soon as possible.
She also warned residents that despite taking their “jabs,” they are not invincible to the virus and will need to adhere to the public health guidelines to remain safe and protect others around them.

“Even though they are vaccinated, we still need to adhere to the public health measures. We still need to continue keeping our mask on. We need to sanitise and practise social distancing. We need to follow these guidelines, not because we are vaccinated means we are going to disregard these measures; it’s absolutely important, it means we continue until it’s safe to return to some normalcy. We need to look out for each other, we need to understand that we are in this together, the only way we can get out of this is by working together and understand that health workers alone cannot fight COVID-19 — it takes a collective effort from us as well as everyone else,” she said.
Dr. Sharma added that accessibility in Berbice should not be an issue, since the COVID-19 vaccines are available at 22 health centres across the region.