Guyana now offering booster shots five months after second dose

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, said the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines reduces six months after taking the second dose, and based on this finding, he said the ministry will now be administering booster shots five months after the second dose.

“Booster shots are now widely recommended because what we noticed is that six months after the first two doses, the immunity of the person starts to wane, meaning that the anti-bodies that they’ve manufactured would start getting lower and by six months it is so low that it’s not very effective.

However, what they have found is that, if between five to six months you’re given a third dose which is the booster shot, then the immunity remains quite high.

“We are offering that booster shot now at five months so that before the immunity starts dropping that we’re able to give people the booster dose at that appropriate time so that immunity remains fairly constant, and fairly high,” Minister Anthony said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony said some persons would develop diabetes after an infection.  This, he said, is due to the toll the disease takes on the endocrine system.

“One of the things that we knew with COVID is that even if you were pre-disposed to diabetes, you had risk factors for diabetes then in some instances after an infection, people actually then present with diabetes because again COVID can affect many systems in your body and in this case the endocrine system.” 

He further said these illnesses developed after an infection are mainly cause by the Delta variant as it is the more severe form of the disease.

He said the Omicron variant predominantly affects the upper respiratory tract, resulting in less hospitalisation.