Minister of Health, Frank Anthony yesterday said that the vaccine which is expected to be shipped into the country to protect against monkeypox is a newly developed one known as the Modified Vaccine Ankara (MVA).
According to Anthony, studies have shown that this vaccine works more efficiently than the older one and has less of the side effects.
“The newer vaccine is called an MVA vaccine… technically it’s a modified vaccine and Ankara virus and by modifying this virus they have been able to see that when they administer it, its very protective against monkeypox, it has less of the side effects than the previous one and so this one is highly recommended”, he said.
Due to it being in limited quantity, the government has had to procure the vaccines through the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) which is also acquiring doses for other countries.
“This is the vaccine that we are working to get into Guyana… there is only one manufacturer and that manufacturer is in Europe. They have limited supplies, so if we go and put in a small order our chances of getting it is very small so we are working through PAHO… they have taken orders from other countries in Latin America and pooled the orders together, so we’re going to the manufacturers with a common order for the Americas.”
Anthony emphasised that only persons who are at high risk of exposure to the virus will be able to get a jab.
“Because of the vaccines being very limited, one of the things that have been recommended in the countries that have started to use the vaccine is to determine the person’s risk… so the MVA, what they have recommended is not to give it as a pre-exposure prophylactic type of vaccine meaning that you give it before somebody has been exposed, but rather you do it as a post-exposure vaccine, so if someone is at high risk, meaning that you would’ve been in close contact with somebody who has monkeypox…”
The Minister noted that the vaccine’s side effects are temporary and vary based on each person’s reaction to it.
