There are no barriers to persons accessing COVID-19 vaccines or treatment in Guyana, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony assurance on Tuesday, as the World Health Organisation observed ‘Zero Discrimination Day’.
Observed under the theme “Let’s combat stigma to ensure the world becomes fairer and more equitable,” the focus this year is on “active vaccine equity to end the pandemic.”
“We don’t have an issue of inequality here in Guyana. As soon as we got vaccines, we were able to get the vaccines out to people. What we have is vaccine hesitancy, where a lot of people were not coming forward to take the vaccine,” Dr Anthony said.
He said while the vaccination programme remains in place, there are still pockets of hesitancy across the country. He said health authorities will be visiting regions that have a high level of hesitancy and make “specialised interventions” to get more people to take the vaccines.
“We have done a couple of studies, identifying what are the common factors that might be leading to hesitancy, and we are now designing some programmes and training people to address some of those concerns,” the health minister said.
Regions Two, Eight and Ten statistically have a lower number of vaccines uptake.
Regarding treatment, Dr. Anthony that it is very accessible to persons who tested positive for the Covid-19 disease.
“I don’t believe that it’s causing stigma, and so far, we have been able to work with all those patients to make sure that they get the right medication, the right treatment,” he said.
So far 84.3 per cent of the adult population has taken a first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine while 64 per cent has taken a second dose. On average 1,500 doses are administered daily.
In the last 24 hours there were 25 new cases reported, taking the total number of cases to 489 with 43 hospitalisations