A 27-year-old driver who was employed at the West Demerara Regional Hospital was, on Friday, remanded to prison by Magistrate Zamilla Ali-Seepaul for stealing 12 Covid-19 vaccination booklets from the Ministry Of Health and forging them.

Avinash Ramaherwar of Goed Intent, West Bank Demerara appeared before Leonora Magistrate’s Court and was not required to plead to the simple larceny and forgery charges.  He was remanded to prison until September 20.

According to reports, Ramaherwar would uplift the booklets from the Ministry of Health in Georgetown and take them to the West Demerara Hospital. During the process of the delivery he allegedly took out the 12 booklets. He was busted on August 24, along with two others at the Vreed-en-Hoop Health Centre attempting to have four stolen booklets stamped.

Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, on Wednesday, said that unvaccinated persons caught with forged COVID-19 vaccination cards will face the full force of the law.

“If you steal one of those cards then you can be charged for larceny, and there are specific penalties for that, jail terms and of course fines and so forth. And then if you change the information that is on the card, that is considered to be forgery…we have had a number of cases that have been reported to us and we have called in the police to investigate those cases,” Minister Anthony said.

The minister said that the ministry is working to have the issue addressed. He said there can be a lot of problems if unvaccinated persons become ill, since they are not protected.

“We are very serious about this because if somebody is unvaccinated and they pay for a card, then that can lead to separate problems because if they get sick, and they present that card, we’ll have to go back and check to see whether or not they were actually vaccinated… now if you are not vaccinated, why would you want to get a card? You’re only fooling yourself because you’re not going to be protected,” Dr. Anthony related.

He added: “We can’t tolerate this kind of behaviour– forgery and stealing of cards and so forth. They’ll be dealt with by the police and the courts.” The minister urged unvaccinated persons to desist from purchasing forged cards as they have a choice to be vaccinated.