The Government of Guyana today marked its first anniversary, since beginning the expansive COVID-19 vaccination campaign, to ensure the population was better protected against the deadly coronavirus.
Last year, Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips received the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Indian Government, consisting of 80,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, M.P., during Friday’s COVID-19 update, said Guyana has made substantial progress in its vaccination campaign, with over 850, 000 doses administered thus far.
“I think we’ve done very well so far, we’re one of the countries in the Caribbean that would have vaccinated a substantial portion of its population…
Over the last year we would have been able to administer 850, 735 doses of vaccines, which works out to be about 2, 330 vaccines per day, so I think that’s a really good record that we have set,” he said.
He expressed gratitude to healthcare workers and all who assisted in the roll out of the vaccination programme here.
Dr. Anthony said it because of vaccine donations from countries such as India, China, the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States and through COVAX, that Guyana was able to establish a strong vaccination programme.
“I want to express my sincere thanks to the health workers and everyone who has been involved in the vaccination program.
I would also like to express our gratitude to our various donor organisations, because apart form the government of Guyana buying vaccines, we’ve also received donations from a number of countries.”
Minister Anthony reminded that the vaccination was done in phases, with frontline workers and persons 60 years and older, having the first preference to get inoculated.
Later in the pandemic, vaccination was made available to all citizens as young as 12 years old.
Below is the breakdown of vaccination in Guyana, by age group.
| Age group | First dose (%) | Second dose (%) | Booster dose (%) |
| 60 and over | 83.1 | 73.1 | 20.6 |
| 40-59 years old | 82.8 | 67.6 | 10.1 |
| 18-39 years old | 80.8 | 56.5 | 4.6 |
| 12-17 years old | 45.3 | 32.4 | 0 |
Regarding regional vaccination numbers, Dr. Anthony said of the 12 to 17 age cohort, Region Nine has been leading in its vaccination efforts with more than 100 percent of this age group receiving the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and 85.6 percent fully inoculated.
“… they would have given out a lot more than what we have in the population database and that might be because of persons coming over from Brazil and accessing the vaccines,” the minister related.
He said vaccination among this age group continues to lag, in Regions Two, Four, Five, Seven and Ten. As such, moving forward, the ministry will be focusing more on getting children vaccinated in these areas.