12,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccines to arrive tomorrow – Min. Anthony

The remaining 12, 000 doses of the purchased 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine are expected in the country tomorrow.

Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony during today’s COVID-19 Update, confirmed the arrival of the vaccines.

“These vaccines are much easier to handle because basically you can store down between two to eight degrees Celsius. Unlike the other vaccines that we’ve been working with which requires very cool temperature. So, in some of the more remote areas, our core chain already caters for vaccines, and therefore this will certainly help,” Minister Anthony said.

The 12,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccines are the reminder from the 100,000 doses the Government of Guyana bought from the People’s Republic of China, to ensure every adult gets vaccinated.

The entire batch will ensure 50,000 persons are fully vaccinated.

As the Government’s Covid vaccination campaign continues, more than 48 per cent of the adult population has taken the first dose of the vaccine.

“As of yesterday, we have 234,255 persons with first dose vaccines and again that would represent 48.1% of our adult population. We want to encourage more persons to come out and get their first dose vaccines…Second dose vaccines right now, we’re at 112,371 persons who would have received their second dose vaccines, which would put us approximately 23.1% of our adult population.”

Meanwhile, Minister Anthony said the vaccination campaign is resuming in remote hinterland villages which were inaccessible due to flooding. The Minister is encouraging all adults to take the COVID-19 vaccine to push Guyana closer to achieving herd immunity. The aim is to have approximately 500,000 adults vaccinated.