Almost forty per cent of Guyana’s adult population has received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine but in a sign of how tight supply chains are the Ministry of Health has no more second doses of Russia’s Sputnik V shots on hand as there has been in a delay in shipments.
Sputnik V, described as the backbone of the vaccine programme, is administered in two doses which are different from each other. The Ministry still has first doses of Sputnik V available but did not say how many are still in stock
The Ministry has also exhausted its first doses of AstraZenica vaccines but it has enough for those who are awaiting their second dose. AstraZenica is administered in two identical doses eight to 12 weeks apart.
A statement from the ministry yesterday said that a further shipment of Sputnik V first and second doses “will arrive in Guyana soon”.
The statement on the vaccine shortage came yesterday afternoon having not been mentioned earlier in the day by Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony while delivering his daily update. Anthony during his update reiterated that the vaccination numbers are increasing steadily. “We have had 191,151 persons receiving their first dose, this amounts to close to 39.3 per cent of our adult population,” the minister said.
He added that 62,610 persons have so far receiv-ed their second dose and can be considered fully vaccinated. As a result, the amount of persons fully vaccinated accounts for approximately 12.9 percent of the country’s adult population. It means that the ministry has administered a total of 253,761 doses.
Guyana has received 3,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from Barbados, 20,000 Sinopharm shots from China and 80,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from India, as donations. Some 5,000 vaccines from the set donated by India were later donated to Barbados. The 55,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines which were purchased by the government arrived later followed by 24,000 doses of AstraZeneca from COVAX and 83,000 doses of Sputnik V shots along with 38,400 doses of AstraZeneca from COVAX and finally 67,537 doses of Sputnik V on May 17.
It would mean that Guyana has received 365,937 doses of vaccines which at two per person means that only 182,968 persons should have received first doses. The higher figure quoted by Anthony suggests that the Sputnik V first doses were in excess of the second doses. It could also mean some AstraZeneca second doses were used as first doses. Under the COVAX scheme, Guyana is expected to receive 38,400 more vaccines. No timeline has been given for this.
The government says it has also ordered 600,000 more doses of Sputnik V. It is this shipment that has now been delayed.
Meanwhile, the minister yesterday applauded the Independence Day vaccine drive-thru exercise which was held on Wednesday at the Guyana National Stadium. “We had really bad weather, at times the tarmac had, I would say, about 2 inches of water. Nevertheless people came out in their numbers [and] at no time did we have any space in between so to speak, there was always a constant flow of people.”
As a result, he noted, the Ministry is encouraged by the response and a team will review the outreach and would probably host more drive-thru programmes at the National Stadium. The Minister went on to say that they would be working with the different regions to see whether there are possibilities to do similar outreaches.
According to Anthony, Region Six hosted a smaller version of the vaccine drive-thru and he was told that there was a fairly good response. “We will see how we can develop it and grow it and we get a lot more people coming out.”
During the update the minister encouraged persons to get inoculated contending that vaccination prevents deaths and is a way of reducing the burden of the disease.
“Herd immunity means that you really have a substantial portion of your population that is immunised so if the infection is present then the infection would be limited in its spread, meaning that it would not affect a lot of people,” Anthony said.
