Govt working to secure Sputnik V second doses

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony is appealing to persons awaiting their second dose of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine to be patient as the Government is working to acquire the vaccines.

The Minister made this appeal during Thursday’s COVID-19 update.

“As you know, we have been getting second dose in increments and this week, we received 10,000 second dose. We have allocated the second dose to the people who got their first dose in April and in May.

“Right now, I think we have been able to distribute it in all the regions, so that people can get their second dose, and we are right now at the tail end of that shipment that we received. So, I’m asking people for their patience as we work to make sure that we get more doses in. There is going to be a second dose for everyone who took their first dose. I don’t want people to be worried about that.”

Minister Anthony said the Government has been working continuously to obtain the vaccines.

“So, as we get those supplies in, we are going to announce it so that people can come and get their second dose.”

At the same time, Dr. Anthony said first doses of the Sputnik V vaccines are still available and urged the public to get inoculated. The other vaccines available in Guyana at the moment are the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Sinopharm.

Guyana is also awaiting a donation of 84,800 AstraZeneca doses from the United Kingdom. This was made possible through a bilateral agreement between the UK and Guyana.   Of this consignment, Minister Anthony said many of the outlying regions will benefit because of the easy storage standard.

“This would complement the vaccines that we have in Guyana. And, as you know, we’ve had good experience using AstraZeneca vaccines here. It was the first vaccine that we received and we have good experience working with it.

“What it also would help us to do is to get a lot of this vaccine out to communities that have challenges with cold storage because these vaccines can be stored between two to eight degrees Celsius. So, it would work well, especially in the interior communities.”  

To date, 249,908 adults in Guyana have taken their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 136,919 adults have been fully immunised.