Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony on Wednesday revealed that a National Vaccine Task Force is being set up to guide the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine whenever it becomes available to Guyana.
The minister said that the Task Force would include persons from the Ministry of Health (MoH), government agencies, the private sector and members of the Joint Services. He added that they are also working on having a few expert immunologists join the task force.
“It would have persons who are familiar with immunization, vaccine programmes. We have persons who we have trained that are in the private sector that understand cold storage and how to maintain refrigeration and things like that so they are going to be a part of the team…. Every member of the team will be essential as we plan and roll out (the vaccine),” he said.
While the team is still being formed, Anthony stated, they have already developed a draft preparedness plan. He said they have commenced expansion of cold chain storage facilities for the vaccine.
“We are working to expand some of these to ensure that we have adequate space,” he noted, before pointing out that they have started the procurement process to source the types of refrigerators that would be necessary for the storage of COVID-19 vaccines.
In addition, he said they have started developing a training manual that would be used to train healthcare workers on how to administer a vaccine.
