Ministries target adolescents in immunisation campaign

TWO GOVERNMENT MINISTRIES HAVE TEAMED UP TO LAUNCH A
HEALTHCARE CAMPAIGN targeting students 12- to 17-years-old in a push for a safe
reopening of schools nationwide in another two weeks.
The
Ministries of Education and Health will facilitate an immunization campaign for the target group
as the country prepares to inoculate school children as a safety net against the highly contagious
and deadly coronavirus which has killed over 600 Guyanese and more than 4.4 million persons
globally.
However, parents must first sign the ministry of education consent form for their children to
receive the protective jab to benefit from in-class learning. The learning ministry has indicated
that parents are supporting vaccinating their children to re-enter schools from September 06.
Towards this end, the Guyana Government received 146,250 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the
US government to support immunising the adolescent school population. If all doses are set aside
for school children, it will mean that 83, 125 students will receive the jab from this batch of
vaccines.

It is unclear how many of the 172,000 students in all schools throughout the country are targeted
by the two government ministries under the novel initiative.
“We’re no longer talking my friends, about getting past the virus to come into schools. We’re
talking about getting past the virus so that you can live. That is where we’re at now,” Minister
Priya Manickchand told parents, teachers and students Thursday when she met with them at St.
Stanislaus College, Brickdam, to update them.
Ramon Cummings and Danah Shiwgobin, students of St. Stanislaus College, were the first two
local adolescents to take the jab.

The Pfizer vaccine is part of a 5.5 million doses the US government donated to the regional
integration movement, CARICOM.
There has been resistance among Guyanese after the government took the route of compulsory
vaccination for state employees earlier this month as a requirement for entering their workplaces
or trying to get critical services.
Healthcare workers, especially nurses, have been in the vanguard of the pushback against the
controversial decision heavily criticised also by workers unions. But Manickchand has asked
students, parents and teachers not to be influenced by their noises.
“We’re not talking about mundane things like whether we can educate you and whether we can
give you the opportunity to thrive in the beautiful new Guyana that is about to come here. We’re
talking about children who continue to live. When you’re talking about positions like that
everybody’s going to be required to be responsible and humane,” the minister counselled.
‘Get immunised’ was Manickchand’s message.
“This is a time in Guyana and indeed this is a time in the world when what is required of each of
us as individuals, of each of our family units, of each of our communities, our country as a whole
would be for us to be the very best, we are capable of being. We cannot afford this time when
there is an existential threat hanging over our heads, with new variants coming to our shores and
attacking our people, to be hesitant about what positions to take…the science and the medicine is
clear,” she said.

US Chief of Mission, Mark Cullinane in brief comments defended the integrity of the vaccine
donation, saying it is the same as used in the US and other countries around thew world.
“Scientific teams and legal and regulatory authorities from the United States and the Region,
have worked together to ensure the delivery of safe and effective vaccines and the fine people of
the Ministry of Health, have been a superb partner in that regard,” Cullinane said.

The US official urged Guyanese to “get vaccinated so we can beat this pandemic and move
on to a productive, educated and healthy Guyana which is a priority for this country and
my own.”