COVID-19 vaccines safe, effective -Minister Anthony

Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony says no one has died from taking any of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use in Guyana, that is the Sinopharm, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Sputnik V.

He said the vaccines have been tested and have proven effective in protecting the public from contracting a severe form of Covid.  Minister Anthony made those statements during Wednesday’s COVID 19-update.

“The vaccines that we currently have in Guyana and I would say globally, they are all very good vaccines; they work, they are effective, they are safe. As of this week, the World Health Organization would have said about 2.2 billion persons would have received vaccines.

So, we know that these vaccines are working and they are protecting people from getting the disease.”

Minister Anthony added that since Guyana began its vaccination campaign in March, there has been no reports of deaths due to any of those vaccines.

The gentleman stopped at the Movie Towne parking lot for his COVID-19 vaccine.

“We started our campaign maybe about 14 weeks ago and since then we have had a number of persons who would have received both doses of the vaccine. And all of those persons who would have received both doses of the vaccine, none of them have been hospitalised, none of them have come to the ICU and none of them would have died from COVID.

If you take both doses of the vaccine, you would be protected against COVID-19. And that’s what we want, people to be safe and protected. So, I urge everyone to make sure you take your vaccine, get both doses, once that happens, you will be protected.”

As of Tuesday evening, 223,658 persons in Guyana had taken their first does of a COVID-19 vaccine. This represents 45.9 per cent of the country’s adult population, while over 92,000 persons have been fully vaccinated.