Guyana yesterday received another shipment of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines to boost the ongoing inoculation programme against COVID-19.
The Department of Public Information (DPI) reported that another shipment of some 100,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccines arrived at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri yesterday afternoon. It is unclear how many first and second dose components make up the 100,000. The Sputnik first and second doses are not identical.
Guyana initially purchased 200,000 Sputnik doses and this number has already been received. It has since ordered 600,000 more shots and yesterday’s shipment is part of this purchase.
The Health Ministry had previously announced that it had exhausted its supply of Sputnik V second doses, thereby delaying the completion of the vaccination of some persons who had been told that the second shot would be administered within four weeks.
Guyana has so far received 3,000 doses of the AstraZeneca shots, 20,000 Sino-pharm vaccines and 80,000 AstraZeneca shots all as a result of donations from Barbados, China and India respectively. Of the tranche of 80,000 some 5,000 were donated to Barbados.
Subsequently 55,000 doses of Sputnik V shots were received, 24,000 AstraZeneca shots from COVAX and another 83,000 Sputnik V vaccines. Some 38,400 additional AstraZeneca doses were later received from COVAX, 67,537 doses of Sputnik V and now yesterday’s shipment of 100,000 doses.
This means that Guyana has so far received a total of 465,937 doses of vaccines and has shots for the full vaccination of 232,968 persons.
During his daily COVID-19 update yesterday, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony stated that as of Sunday 76,115 persons have received both doses of a vaccine. Further, he mentioned that some 210,777 persons have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
With that he noted that there are a number of persons who have received their first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine and have yet to return for their second dose. “We have noticed this in Region Seven and in Region Two, so I want to make a special appeal to those persons who in these two regions have received their Sinopharm first dose to come back and get their second dose,” he said.
