A total of 267 Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara residents received their second doses of the Sputnik-V vaccine on Saturday.
The vaccinations were administered during a drive organised by the Block 8 Development Group of Mon Repos in collaboration with the Health Ministry.
“It shows the power of working with community groups. Here it is we made that call and we are extremely pleased that this community group here, Block 8 Development Group heeded that call and has been able to work with the Ministry of Health. We have provided the technical personnel, the vaccines and so forth but they did all the community organising and mobilising of people,” Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony said in a comment to the Department of Public Information (DPI).
While DPI reported that over 120 persons received their second jabs at the drive, the Block 8 Development Group subsequently announced that 267 residents had in fact gotten vaccines.
The DPI report on the drive noted that the Group was formed only a month ago with a specific mandate of overseeing development of the community.
Karamchand Jaikaran, Chairman of the community group, told DPI that the members want to do a lot for the community.
“Concerning the COVID-19, we realised that vaccination is the only solution we have presently. So, we are going out sensitising the people in the community and even beyond the community to be vaccinated,” he said.
In addition, the Block 8 group’s Public Relations Officer Troy Edmondson said it has seen quite an overwhelming response from villagers and that another exercise will be organised soon.
The first person to receive her second dose of vaccine during the exercise was Lakshmi Lakshman, who told DPI that she had no adverse symptoms after receiving her first dose.
Another resident, Dasmattie Balram recounted a similar experience. “I’m here for my second dose of the vaccine. The first dose, I did not have no symptom in spite of all the allergies that I have.”
The report noted that Guyana is set to receive two consignments of COVID-19 vaccines this week, comprising 60,000 Sputnik V doses sourced from Russia and 38,400 AstraZeneca doses through the COVAX facility.
