Guyana to get 104,000 AstraZeneca COVID vaccines - Anthony

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony yesterday said that Guyana is expected to receive around 104,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as the WHO-led mechanism, COVAX has increased its allocation to the country.

Dr. Anthony made this announcement during his daily COVID-19 update where he stated that health authorities have received correspondence from the COVAX facility, which indicated that the allocation to Guyana will now be close to 104,000 doses of the vaccine. With two doses per person this would cover 52,000 persons.

The Pan-American Health Organization also said that 36 countries will begin accessing their vaccines from mid-February through the second quarter of 2021. The minister had stated at a press conference over the weekend that COVAX was initially making 3,800 doses of vaccines available to Guyana from February to March.

“Since that press conference, we have received correspondence from COVAX indicating that they have been able to do an indicative allocation of vaccines to Guyana or doses of vaccines to Guyana and that is going to be close to 104,000 doses” the minister said, while adding that the vaccines are expected to be in Guyana “shortly”.

He stated that the vaccines that Guyana will receive will be from AstraZeneca whose study findings are still under review by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use approval. In a press release on Sunday, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that the number of doses and the delivery schedule for the vaccines are subject to the emergency use approval/ listing and the manufacturing production capacity.

The health minister further noted that the AstraZeneca vaccines have been given emergency use authorization in the United Kingdom, European Union and India and a number of other countries.

“We are very happy that they have indicated to us that we will be getting 104,000 doses as a start and we would be working closely with them to see when these vaccines would actually arrive in Guyana”. The vaccine to be administered as two doses per person, he said, will be rolled out as soon as they are received in Guyana. Though it is more than they had anticipated for the first wave, he said that authorities are prepared to receive the vaccines and have trained teams for the rollout.

“This is much more than we had anticipated in the first wave because initially they had told us of a smaller sum in the first wave but now it seems that we will get a bigger lot but we are nevertheless prepared to receive the vaccines”, Dr. Anthony said.

PAHO on Sunday stated that some thirty six countries and territories participating in COVAX had received letters stating the estimated number of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines that they will receive from the second half of February through the second quarter of the year.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was developed by the Anglo-Swedish company in conjunction with the UK’s Oxford University. A number of questions have been raised about the data it has supplied to regulatory authorities.

On Saturday, the government had also announced that China was donating 20,000 doses of its vaccines.