Over 100,000 persons have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as the inoculation programme heats up here.
This was revealed by Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony yesterday during his COVID-19 update where he noted that the milestone was met as of Tuesday. “I think we have met a milestone as of yesterday because we have exceeded 100k persons receiving their first dose and this is across Guyana”, he said.
Anthony mentioned that this was achieved as persons came out to receive their vaccines even as teams were also deployed into villages to ensure that everyone is reached. He added that the healthcare workers who have been working along with the vaccination campaign have done a remarkable job.
“I want to commend them for the job that they have done so far but we still have a long way to go to ensure that all adult Guyanese and other persons living in Guyana receive their jab but I think this is a very significant milestone for us all”, the health minister said.
Meanwhile, advisor to the Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy in a post to social media noted that Guyana has achieved this feat ahead of the Ministry’s initial plan which was to have 100,000 persons receive their first dose by April 30th. “We did it ten days earlier. We are grateful to the persons who came forward. We are grateful to the health workers who against all odds accomplished a feat people thought was impossible”, he said.
With that he noted that arrangements are still underway to procure more vaccines for the population. Guyana has received donations of 3,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from Barbados, 20,000 Sinopharm shots from China and 80,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from India. (5,000 vaccines from the tranche donated by India were later donated to Barbados.) Some 55,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines which were purchased by the government later arrived in the country followed by 24,000 doses of AstraZeneca from COVAX. A recent shipment of 83,000 Sputnik V shots from Russia put Guyana in a position to have some 130,000 persons fully inoculated.
