Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony says in a few weeks’ time, Government should procure COVID-19 vaccines for children.
The Minister made the announcement during the ‘Because We Care’ cash grant distribution exercise at the St. Ambrose Primary School in Georgetown.
As he delivered the feature address Wednesday morning, Minister Anthony said to roll out the plan, the support of both parents and teachers is vital.
“We are also working to make sure that we provide vaccination for children between the ages of 12 and 18, right now we don’t have those types of vaccines in Guyana but we are working to make sure that we could get those vaccines for children.
“We anticipate that in another couple of weeks we will get those vaccines and when we get those vaccines, we would require the cooperation of both parents and teachers so that we could get those vaccines administered as quickly as possible.”
Minister Anthony said just as vaccines protected children from the infancy stage, the COVID-19 vaccine would do the same now and those children would be able to return to school.
He noted that it has been a challenging year for the education sector. The Minister told parents that they too have a responsibility to get vaccinated to protect themselves and their children.
“People in the education field are calling it a deficit in education, because we would have lost very important time, so if we continue like this its going to be a challenge for that child when that child has to write common entrance or even if you are at secondary, you will have to write CSEC and so forth. So, we have to repair that damage, we have to get children back to school as quickly as possible.
“One way for us to do that is that we will have to create a safe environment in our schools, how can we do that, we have to make sure that the parents get vaccinated, that teachers get vaccinated.” The only vaccine granted authorisation for emergency use in children ages 12 to 15 is the Pfizer vaccine.
