Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Tuesday said that the government was pleased to have been able to donate COVID-19 vaccines to Barbados while stating that the ministry is grateful for its collaborations with other governments.
Anthony made these remarks during the COVID-19 update days after the Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley had made the announcement in Bridgetown of the donation of 5,000 doses from Guyana.
“We are happy to extend these vaccines to Barbados because they have helped us to kickstart our vaccination programme and we’re just happy to assist in whatever way we can,” Anthony said while adding that they are open to helping other countries across the region as long as Guyana is able to.
These types of collaborations, he reminded, have been done before and are not new. He noted that in some instances for example, if Guyana has a shortage of a specific drug, the authorities would reach out to other countries for assistance and if they have they would donate to Guyana. Similarly he mentioned that previously if other countries within the region experienced shortages authorities here would render assistance.
“We have these types of collaborations all the time, so sometimes we need something, a particular medicine, we don’t have it here, we’ll ask a sister country if they have [and] they send to us, sometimes they have shortages, we have, we send to them. So this is something that we have been doing” Anthony pointed out.
Meanwhile, he further expressed gratitude for these types of collaborations that Guyana has had with a number of other governments as he highlighted that Guyana had received donations of COVID-19 vaccines from Barbados, China, and India which aided in Guyana’s inoculation process. “With these donations we were able to kick start our immunisation programme which is ongoing and we’re very happy that we can do that,” the minister added.
