15,524 people have received the COVID-19 vaccine to date

Some 15,524 people have so far taken the COVID-19 vaccine as the Government, through the Ministry of Health, continues its comprehensive vaccination programme countrywide.

Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony made this disclosure during Friday’s COVID-19 update.

“Many persons are coming forward to take the vaccine and we are very pleased with that. We will be ramping up the roll out of that because we want as many persons as possible and in the fastest way as possible to get this. Because once you get the vaccine that protection starts and we are eager to put the vaccine in people’s arm rather than keeping it in one of the freezers that we have”, the Health Minister said.

Minister Anthony said there is need for improvement in some such as in Region Ten. He added that more of the residents need to come out and take the vaccine.

Dr. Anthony relayed some of those affected in the Region have had the more severe form of COVID, resulting in several deaths. The Health Minister said a repeat could be prevented once people take the vaccine.

“I think that we need to get more of the community out. We need people of influence in Linden to advocate for the vaccine. Because once you are immunised it protects you from the more severe form of COVID, one of things we have to do is engage more of the persons of influence in Linden and hopefully we will see a better uptake of the vaccine.”

The next category of people to be targeted for the vaccines are individuals 50 years and older.

“But we still have quite a number of 60 and above to reach and while we have fix sites, people have some challenges getting to those sites so we are now working with the NDCs to get to them to identify the older people in the NDC, those who are bed ridden and so forth. We would have a special team that would reach out to them and be able to take the vaccine to them”.

Minister Anthony said people would be notified when the vaccinating teams are visiting the designated sites to administer the shots.

“More than likely we will be using the health centres and where there isn’t a health centre, we will try and find another suitable public building we can utilise,” he said.

This first round of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign for frontline healthcare workers and persons ages 60 years and older will be completed this weekend, making way for the next category of inoculations.

This Region Nine resident receives his COVID-19 jab

Mr. Rodger Kind of Parishara also got his COVID-19 vaccine

Lethem resident Ms. Olive Herman displays her COVID-19 vaccination card

The vaccines were donated to the Government from within the Region and further afield. The Government of Barbados donated 3,000 doses, the People’s Republic of China, 20,000 and India, 80,000 doses.

Guyana is awaiting 104,000 vaccines through the COVAX mechanism and another 149,000 under a CARICOM-African Union purchase agreement. Also, last weekend President, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali said the country is expecting 200,000 doses of the Sputnik vaccine over the coming weeks.