Vaccination outreach to East Coast benefit residents

Several residents from Annandale and surrounding communities on the East Coast of Demerara
on Saturday benefitted from a vaccination outreach to the area.
The outreach was organized by Attorney General and Minister of Legal affairs, Anil Nandlall,
who has parliamentary responsibility for the East Coast of Demerara. He said that the activity
was held in collaboration with the Health and Legal Affairs Ministries to administer vaccines and
booster shots. “It is important that we continue these public engagements and we continue to
encourage our citizens to take the vaccines and to take the booster shots and to make it as
convenient as possible for them to have access, to this type of medical care and medical facilities
and that is why we are not only doing it in the urban centers alone, but we are travelling to the
length and breadth of the country to carry out this exercise as a government,” Nandlall explained.
Nandlall said that the villages were informed of the vaccination drive through a mobile public
address system. The AG and legal affairs minister also thanked the staff of the Health Ministry
and the Guyana Defence Force who conducted the vaccination exercise.

Health Minister Advisor, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy was also part of the outreach. He pointed out
that Guyana is one of a small group of developing countries that has secured vaccines for all who
are eligible. “We now need to make sure that those who are eligible for their booster shot come.
Today’s exercise focuses on the booster shot and clearly from the response that we are seeing,
people want their booster shots,” Dr. Ramsammy said.
Several persons were quoted as expressing thanks for benefitting from booster shots. “I’m here
to take my booster shot, because the omicron virus is spreading rapidly,” Rampersaud Sukhu
said as he urged everyone to get vaccinated. “Let them come out and take the vaccine, the
booster shot or the first dose or second dose, both them a give, y’all come out and take your
vaccine, it’s very good,” Morris Singh urged.
“I come here to take this vaccine, the third dose and everything working alright and so, I ain’t
feel no pain or whatsoever,” Sam Gopaul who benefitted said. Even though the outreach mainly
focused on booster shots, several persons also took their first and second doses of the various
vaccines.
One of the persons who took the vaccine for the first time is Chandradat Chanderpaul.“The covid
spreading more, so that is why meh come tek me first dose, so that mek meh decide fuh come tek
meh fuss dose,” Chanderpaul said. “Now meh can guh places, because you have to get one
vaccine card, so that’s why I decide to take my first dose, because you can’t go in GRA and so,”
Chanderpaul admitted.
It was pointed out that so far, approximately 81 percent of the population have taken the first
dose of a vaccine while 59 percent have taken the second dose. With the spike in Covid-19 cases,
there has been an increase in vaccine uptake recently.