Over 130,000 persons have received first COVID dose – Anthony

Guyana has surpassed the 130,000 mark for persons receiving their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

This announcement was made by Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony during his COVID-19 update where he stated, “Indeed we have passed the 130,000 mark, as of yesterday [Wednesday]… 132,739 persons received their first dose of the vaccines.” This he said approximates to about 27 per cent of the adult population.

In addition to this Anthony said that those persons who have received the Sinopharm vaccine continue to receive their second shots and 3,760 persons are currently fully inoculated.

Guyana has so far acquired vaccines to fully cover 130,000 persons as authorities have received donations of 3,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from Barbados, 20,000 Sinopharm shots from China and 80,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from India. From the tranche donated by India, 5,000 doses were then donated to Barbados. The government had purchased 55,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines, followed by 24,000 doses of AstraZeneca from COVAX and subsequently another 83,000 doses of the Sputnik V.

The minister said that it is necessary for all adults to be immunised in order to reach herd immunity and exit the pandemic. He continued to encourage persons to come out and be vaccinated. Anthony also cleared up the misconception about needing to have a COVID-19 test before getting the vaccine. This he emphasised was not at all necessary and not true.

He noted that if persons are however showing typical signs and symptoms of the virus, it is then that they should be tested as vaccines are not given to those who at the time are positive.

“If you have typical signs and symptoms of COVID-19 like a cough fever, these flu like symptoms… then those are typical signs of COVID and we don’t want to give you a vaccine if you are positive, we prefer you to recover from the disease before you are given the vaccine,” the Minister informed.