Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, has announced that the government is expecting the arrival of 7,000 doses of the Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 vaccines.
The vaccines, which were ordered from COVAX, are expected to arrive by the last week of this month.
“The bivalent vaccines are more effective… once we get those vaccines, we’ll urge people to come out,” the Minister said during his first update on the Covid-19 situation for the new year.
According to the US FDA website, “The bivalent COVID-19 vaccines include a component of the original virus strain to provide broad protection against COVID-19 and a component of the omicron variant to provide better protection against COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant. These are called bivalent COVID-19 vaccines because they contain these two components. A bivalent COVID-19 vaccine may also be referred to as “updated” COVID-19 vaccine booster dose.”
Meanwhile, Dr Anthony said as cases continue to rise, the government encourages persons to get their booster shots and still take the necessary precautions.
To date, the country has a total of 329 active cases in regions all across Guyana with Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) recording the highest number of cases.
Additionally, there are 17 persons hospitalised in the country, 13 of whom are at Ocean View and two of those persons in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
“People need to be more cautious as they go about their business, a lot of people complain of flu-like symptoms. However, most of the persons who complain of flu, they’re not going to get their Covid test and in many instances instead of flu, it can be Covid. So our appeal to everyone is if you have flu-like symptoms, you should go and get a COVID-19 test just to rule out Covid.”
The Minister also shared that Guyana has done fairly well with the distribution of primary doses of the vaccines as they have recorded 80 percent of persons who have gotten their first dose and 40 percent have been administered their second.
The Ministry also recorded 77,100 persons who have taken their first booster dose and 4,682 who returned for their second dose.
