BREAKING – Guyanese to receive COVID vaccines in April

GUYANESE will begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccine from this April a knowledgeable source
said.
According to the well-placed informant, prioritised in the first wave of the COVID-19 vaccination
drive are health and other frontline workers in the healthcare sector and the country’s elderly
population.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI)
the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the United Nations International Children’s
Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and “other vaccine partners” for the alliance to ensure Guyanese will be
vaccinated as a defence against the deadly COVID-19 disease which has killed more than two million
persons globally.
In Guyana, more than 170 have died since the virus was first identified here when a returning
Guyanese from the USA died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). In the 10
months since the first COVID-19 diagnosis here, there have been more than 7,200 cases with more
than 6350 recovering from the ailment.
According to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, after the deadly virus was
first detected in Wuhan, China, it took nine months for the deaths globally to hit the one million mark,
but in just three months after figures for the COVID-19 dead doubled.
Experts believe figures for COVID-19 deaths are under-reported.
"We have found that on average, total deaths are 20 percent higher than reported deaths," reported Mr.
Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of
Washington in Seattle, on a recent CNN programme.
The COVAX Facility with WHO, GAVI, PAHO, UNICEF and others are determined to end the global
march of death by the COVID-19 virus.
Under the COVAX Facility backing, Guyanese in all 10 Administrative Regions will be targeted
simultaneously under the initial COVID-19 inoculation drive, the well-placed source told
www.aroundtheregions.com.
COVAX is seen as “the only truly global solution to this pandemic because it is the only effort to
ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to COVID-19 vaccines once they are
available, regardless of their wealth,” GAVI said on its website.

It said “COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which
was launched in April (2020) by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission
(EC) and France in response to this pandemic.”
“Bringing together governments, global health organisations, manufacturers, scientists, private
sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access
to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines,” is a key vision of COVAX, the GAVI
website explained.