Govt justifies $1.3B COVID-19 vaccine procurement

The National Assembly has approved the sum of $1,283,250,000 for the Ministry of Health to facilitate the payment of vaccines, vaccine supplies and the roll-out of activities to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Minister, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony, on Monday said most of the funds were used to procure 200,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and 100,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm for the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

The Government expended $957,000,000 and $326,000,000 on the vaccines respectively. The Sputnik V was procured through a licensed supplier of the Russian Sovereign Funds while Sinopharm was bought directly from the manufacturer.

Responding to a question posed by Opposition Leader, Hon. Joseph Harmon, Minister Anthony said the Government procured the vaccines at the best possible price in the light of the current vaccine shortage.

“The thing here is availability. If it’s not available, then we have to buy at the price that we’re getting…and when we also look at the sum, this includes the transportation but if you can get it at a better price, we’re going to look at it because again as I said, we’re all in this together,” the Minister said.

The Committee heard that with the Government’s procurement efforts, more than 44 per cent of the country’s adult population has been vaccinated. This, Minister Anthony said, would not have been possible if Guyana depended solely on vaccine donation from COVAX.

“Look around and you will see in many of the countries in the Caribbean, they have not been able to acquire vaccines as they have been dependent solely on COVAX and because COVAX has not been able to supply them with vaccines although there have been many promises.

Today we will not be able to vaccinate more than 10 per cent of our population,” he said.

The Minister gave assurances that enough vaccines have been acquired to immunise the country’s entire adult population. He said the vaccines were acquired after an assessment by the statistical bureau.

“We have a look at the adult population for each region and we have vaccines allocated for each of those regions.”

To date, the Barima-Waini (Region One) is leading the immunisation drive with 53.8 per cent of the region’s adult population receiving the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The East Berbice-Corentyne (Region Six) follows close behind with 53 per cent.

Additionally, funds were also used to boost the country’s cold storage capacity to accommodate the COVID-19 vaccines. The Minister explained that the cold storage chain was previously built to store vaccines between two to eight degrees Celsius while the COVID-19 vaccines require colder temperatures.