Even as he laments the slow uptake of Covid vaccines among the country’s youth population, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony assured that efforts are ongoing to secure vaccines for children aged 5 to 11.
Vaccines are only available here for children aged 12 to 17 – whereby 45.1% of that population representing 32,873 have received a first dose while 32.1% or 23,383 are fully immunised.
Since approval was granted for the emergency use authorisation of vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 last year, the Guyana Government has been working to procure these jabs.
In providing an update on this progress today, the Health Minister that several approaches are being taken.
“One such mechanism has been through CARICOM and they have been having discussions with the folks at Pfizer to see whether or not the Caribbean region will be able to access these vaccines,” Dr Anthony explained.
“We have made known how much of these vaccines we will need for our population and we’re anxiously awaiting for those negotiations to be completed for us to get an understanding of when we can access those vaccines,” he added.
Moreover, the Health Minister said the Guyana Government is hoping to also secure vaccines for children between the age group of five-year-old to six-months-old, once it gets approval.
“This month…Pfizer would have submitted its vaccine for review by the US Food and Drug Administration and we understand that the panel is going to meet sometime this month to give emergency use authorisation for that vaccine,” Dr Anthony noted.
“But again, when the US would give its approval, it would take several months before the vaccine would be made available to the world,” he cautioned.
Notwithstanding these efforts, Dr Anthony lamented the poor rate of vaccination among children. He argued that while the chances of children contracting the worst form of the virus are low, parents should grant consent for their kids to get immunised against the life-threatening illness.
He pointed out that for the duration of the pandemic in Guyana, a total of 7,831 paediatric cases were recorded, 55 of which were hospitalised. Of this amount, 17 children died as a result of the virus.
