President Irfaan Ali has condemned as “reckless and immature” a call by Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon to suspend admin-istration of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.
“This is against the interest of Guyana and Guyanese [and puts] the lives of Guyanese families and communities at risk…Vaccines are not easily procured and for Harmon to discredit those efforts is reckless and shameful,” the President said in a video statement last evening.
Ali insisted that Harmon’s comments which might increase vaccine hesitancy among opposition supporters were selfish as the Opposition Leader has been vaccinated with Sputnik V. Additionally, he said that since Harmon’s comments come just days after the death of the Region 10 Vice Chair, Douglas Gittens, a member of APNU, of COVID-19, they are irresponsible.
“This level of responsibility, this level of selishness is beyond anything that a leader or someone who has prided himself with the values of leadership can demonstrate,” the Head of State declared while urging the general public to listen to health professionals and get vaccinated.
Ali specifically high-lighted that persons who are concerned about the authenticity of the vaccine can examine their vaccination cards which record the batch number and serial number of every dose.
“This can be traced to the manufacturer,” he pronounced.
The statement was released a few hours after Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony told a press conference that there is no justification for Harmon’s claims.
“It is absolutely bizarre…Mr Harmon is not a medical person. Mr Harmon probably doesn’t have much clue pertaining to anything related to vaccines yet decided that the vaccine is not safe. He doesn’t have any proof that the vaccine is not safe or not working but proceeded to make a conclusion and call for us to suspend the use of the vaccine,” Anthony said while lamenting that Harmon’s actions put lives at risk.
He reminded that Sputnik is being used in 74 countries, none of which has reported adverse effects. According to the Minister the local Food and Drug Department is not technically capable of analysing the vaccines but it is able to independently review the information available and be guided by the decisions of more stringent bodies.
“If there are more stringent regulatory bodies that have found it to be safe then we take those findings and we accept them here in Guyana. For those vaccines we noted if they were used in the country where they are manufactured…if a stringent authority has accepted it for use, if in Latin American key countries such as Brazil have approved it then we also could utilise that data,” he explained.
Anthony explained that Guyana has been very fortunate to access vaccines. He stressed that the government had worked with multinationals like the WHO’s COVAX in an attempt to secure enough doses for the population but despite promising to provide enough to inoculate 20% of the population COVAX has not yet been able to deliver.
Through bilateral arrangements with countries such as China and India and contact with manufacturers such as Sinopharm supplies were secured but Pfizer and Moderna indicated that they would be unable to provide vaccines to Guyana in 2021.
Anthony noted that contact was made with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) which was also unable to provide a timetable for delivery of the vaccines.
“We then went through one of the suppliers and were able to get these vaccines,” he shared.
Severity
Anthony stressed that since the vaccine has been proven to reduce the severity of COVID-19 in the fully immunised it reduces the cost borne by the state in treating the disease.
“It would cost about $5,000 to buy a dose of the vaccine [let’s compare that] with the cost to treat someone who gets sick. The medicines we are using some of them cost a US$100 per vial…if you are in the ICU you will need 15 litres of oxygen per minute and that costs a lot…”, he stated.
The Minister’s press conference and the President’s statement were both a response to Harmon’s suggestion that the doses of Sputnik V secured via an arrangement with Dubai’s Sheik Ahmed Dalmook Al-Maktoum might not be authentic.
“There should be a halt to any vaccination using Sputnik V until the origin of these 200,000 doses is clarified,” Harmon declared during a press conference earlier in the day.
The Opposition leader’s statements were influenced by a report by the Nor-wegian newspaper Verdens Gang which claimed that Al-Maktoum is part of deals selling Sputnik V at significantly inflated prices. According to the report, while the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has been selling a dose of the vaccine for $10, Al-Maktoum and his associates have been selling it at $20 a dose.
There is no suggestion in this report that the vaccines acquired by the Emirati sheik, a member of the royal family, are not authentic. In fact, according to this report Al-Maktoum’s company is the sales agent for a company which has bought the COVID-19 vaccine from RDIF.
