Twenty-five thousand children, between the ages of 5-11 years, could now be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as Guyana will be supplied with approximately 50,0000 vaccines from Spain.
This was announced by Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony on Tuesday, at the Main Street Avenue, where he was hosting a sensitisation activity in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in observance of World Tobacco Day.
The vaccines are ‘a special type’ which Guyana has made repeated efforts to procure since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the minister, the vaccines are expected to be shipped into the country by next week.
“This was one of the vaccines that we were trying to get for quite a while now… we are getting a donation from the Government of Spain, so we are expecting that to come in next week, it will be approximately 50,000 or so doses which will then be for about 25,000 children, this would be for children between 5 and 11.”
He also mentioned that another set of vaccines is expected from COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) which will also be for children of the same age group.
The minister said that he hopes for the co-operation of the school systems, along with parents.
“…Here we are gonna be very dependent on two sets of people, one, the school systems… teachers helping to promote it and secondly, the parents. I don’t think that with 25,000 children that we should have a problem.”
In addition, he disclosed that some Moderna vaccines are due in Guyana within a month.
Anthony also informed that to date, vaccines such as Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm, and Pfizer, are available for adults, while Pfizer is also available to ages 12 to 17 years.
