— Region Four leading with 78.3 per cent of population receiving first dose

SOME 359,222 adults and 24,460 adolescents have received their first dose of one of the vaccines the country has made available to citizens as it advances the vaccination campaign to achieve herd immunity.

These numbers, when broken down, means that 70 per cent of the country’s adult population and 39 per cent of its adolescent population or persons between the ages of 12 to 18 have received their first shot of the COVID-19 ‘jab’.

With the exception of the Johnson and Johnson vaccines, for persons to be considered fully vaccinated with the locally available vaccines, namely, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sputnik V and Pfizer for adolescents, they must be administered both components of those vaccines.

In terms of second doses, the statistics show that as of Thursday last, 39 per cent of the adult population has been fully vaccinated, representing some 199,978 persons, while 11,601 adolescents received their Pfizer second shot.

The country’s vaccination drive continues to be rapidly rolled out as 9,510 doses of one of COVID-19 vaccines available locally were administered on Thursday last alone, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony disclosed.

Region Four has been leading vaccination efforts as 78.3 per cent of the region’s adult population has received their first dose. Region Nine follows with 71.6 per cent and Region Six with 71.3 per cent.

In terms of second doses, 44.8 per cent of the Region Four adult population is fully vaccinated, followed by Region Five with 41.2 per cent and Regions Six and Nine with 39 per cent respectively.

Region 10 has seen the lowest vaccination numbers as only 29.7 per cent of the region’s adult population has received at least a first dose of one of the COVID-19 ‘jab’ while only 13.2 per cent of the region’s adult population is fully vaccinated.

“So we know that vaccines can help to reduce transmission, they also would certainly help to reduce persons going into hospital and reduce deaths so if you have cases going up and vaccination rates are low we are going to see a lot of people coming into the hospital,” the Health Minister said.

“… those regions where they have relatively low vaccination rates, I want to make a special appeal to them to ensure that they get people out to go and get their vaccines,” he added.

In a bid to further push vaccination among the population, the Ministry of Health will be conducting a vaccination drive at the National Cultural Centre Tarmac, Hadfield Street, Georgetown this weekend.

All vaccines are currently available with the exception of the AstraZeneca first dose. The country’s stock of AstraZeneca first doses has depleted and only the remaining second dose, which is to be administered four to 12 weeks after the first dose, is available.

This would mean that in addition to the AstraZeneca second dose, both first and second doses of the Sputnik V and Sinopharm vaccines, as well as the single shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine, is available for the adult population, while both doses of the Pfizer vaccine are available for the adolescent population.