Guyanese to get 3,800 COVID-19 vaccines

Guyana: President of Guyana, Dr. Irfaan Ali, declared that some 3,800 COVID-19 vaccines would be available to Guyanese by February and March.

Those vaccines will be directly allotted to our frontline health workers, people with comorbidities, and the elderly.

During an address to the nation, the President stated that his Government has been working behind the scenes to attempt all possible means to bring the virus under limitation and get the appropriate safeguard.

Furthermore, President added that last year, Guyana joined COVAX and is now likely to receive vaccines for 20% of our population, free of cost. Those are the vaccines anticipated from next month.

President Ali, however, declared that the Government would be looking at various avenues to get a larger percentage of the community protected and will be aggressively going after the vaccine.

He said that at the bilateral levels, the Guyana Government had had fruitful meetings with the India, China, and Russia Governments while we are also working with CARICOM community, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the European Union (EU) for vaccines.

“The Government of China has affirmed that it will be donating 20,000 doses of vaccines to Guyana. Discussions are ongoing, and arrangements to received vaccines from these countries will be concluded .”

The President added that the Government of Guyana is also allocating with major manufacturers, including Pfizer, BioNTec, Moderna, and AstraZeneca, to finalize a vaccine supply from them.

“In short, your Government is wholly entrusted to obtaining vaccines in the shortest possible time, using every means at our disposal for our people…. We will spare no effort; we are pursuing each avenue to get as many vaccines as possible to cover as much of the people as possible.” President added.

He said that while the Government of Guyana works to obtain the vaccines, officials are also preparing to implement their distribution.

Meanwhile, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony stated that the aim is to develop public messages to keep Guyanese up to date. He said that persons are already being instructed to deliver the vaccines and will be able to perform their duties in quick time.

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