The first dose of COVID-19 vaccines can be introduced as early as next month, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony revealed on Tuesday. The Health Minister explained that the vaccines will be a limited amount and will be used to test the country’s vaccination process.
“They (COVAX) have told us they would like to start sooner and we asked countries involved in the readiness and asked us to submit some documentation, and we did that. So if they can introduce it earlier, we expect that countries would start receiving vaccines from next month, ”said the Health Minister.
Dr Anthony explained that once this process was successfully completed, the initial dose of three per cent of the vaccines would then be introduced. The first group of people who will receive the vaccines will be healthcare workers while the second dose will go to the older population and individuals with comorbidities.
Although Guyana does not know which of the vaccines it will receive, it is being procured through the COVAX mechanism. COVAX announced last week that it was signing an advance purchase agreement with Pfizer for 40 million doses of its vaccines.
COVAX also said it is working with the Indian Serum Institute to procure 100 million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca / Oxford University.
“COVAX [has] without telling any of the countries that these are the types of vaccine they will receive or the date they will receive it, ”Dr Anthony explained.
In an effort to prepare for the early introduction of the vaccine, teams across the ten administration regions are being trained in how to administer the injection.
“We have recruited many people who would be part of the immunization team and which is an ongoing process,” said the Health Minister.