The ongoing COVID-19 inoculation process is proceeding well according to Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony while emphasising that healthcare workers should have no fear of losing their jobs should they refuse the vaccine.
The minister made these and other remarks during his COVID-19 update yesterday. He informed that the vaccination programme began on Monday in all ten regions with teams being deployed to different parts of the country and so far reporting a good response. However, he was unable to shed light on the total number of persons vaccinated so far. Nevertheless, he committed to providing those numbers at a later date after the figures have been compiled.
“So far yesterday [Monday] has been a good day and we expect as we go through this immunisation programne that we will get more people coming out, more people would know where the sites are, and so forth, and we will get more people vaccinated in a shorter period of time”, Anthony said.
Further, when asked how the ministry intended to address cases of healthcare workers refusing the vaccines, he responded that healthcare workers have the option to take the vaccine or not. “Our job as a ministry and as a government is to be able to offer them the vaccine and it’s their choice whether they would like to have the vaccine or not. You would recall that the President has said that we are not making this mandatory,” he added.
However, Anthony expressed confidence that those in the health sector would be wise enough to take the vaccine as they are more at risk based on their interactions.
“I think maybe initially there was some skepticism and I think that is changing because initially people were worried about maybe the side effects and so forth but a lot of people have taken the vaccines so far,” Anthony said, adding that the vaccine would help to reduce infection and prevent more severe or critical forms of the disease.
During the update, Stabroek News inquired as to whether the two vaccines currently in stock – Sinopharm and AstraZeneca – will be used concurrently or dispensed in the order received.
Guyana just after its first tranche of AstraZeneca, received a donation of 20,000 Sinopharm shots from the Government of China, and later 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Government of India. The health minister noted that the vaccines will be used as received and that distribution has already been taking place across the regions.
During the update he noted that Guyana is still involved in several discussions with manufacturers of the vaccines as well as in other bilateral deals to be able to access more vaccines. Anthony said that the discussions are developing and as they come closer to fruition, the arrangements will be made known.
