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Health Minister urges persons recovered from COVID-19 to still take vaccine
The types of COVID-19 vaccines (Credit: BBC)
Kaieteur News – The Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, is advising persons who were infected with the COVID-19 virus and have recovered, to take the vaccine upon their arrival in Guyana.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony.
During the COVID-19 update on Wednesday, the Minister sought to address concerns about the immunization of persons who were previously infected. He stated that studies have not determined the length of a person’s immunity after contracting the virus.
Further, he noted that it is still important for those previously infected to be immunized, because studies are still ongoing to determine how long a person’s immunity lasts after they contracted the virus and recovered.
According to the Health Minister, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States of America, would have conducted a study and based on the data gathered, it was said that once a person is infected and recovers, the body develops immunity to the virus which lasts 90 days, but beyond that, they are unsure.
“So it would be safe for persons although they might have been infected that they receive the vaccine or they accept the vaccine when the vaccine is made available, because this would add to the protection that they have already generated by natural immunity,” Dr. Anthony lamented.
He also addressed concerns about persons “getting sick” from COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Anthony explained that the vaccines use small components of the virus triggering the body to make viral proteins to attack the COVID-19 virus, but it does not make persons sick.
Kaieteur News learnt that there are different types of vaccines made to immunize persons from COVID-19. Two are the viral vector vaccines and ribonucleic acid (RNA)/Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) vaccines.
According to The Vaccine Alliance, which is one of the organizations under the COVAX facility that Guyana is receiving a quota of vaccines from, “Viral vector-based vaccines differ from most conventional vaccines in that they don’t actually contain antigens, but rather use the body’s own cells to produce them. They do this by using a modified virus (the vector) to deliver genetic code for antigen, in the case of COVID-19 spike proteins found on the surface of the virus, into human cells. By infecting cells and instructing them to make large amounts of antigen, which then trigger an immune response, the vaccine mimics what happens during natural infection with certain pathogens – especially viruses.”
The COVID-19 RNA or mRNA vaccines according to the CDC, give instructions for cells to make a harmless piece of the “spike protein,” which is found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hugh Todd, met with Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, Chen Xilai, who stated that the 20,000 vaccines China committed to giving Guyana was approved and they are expected to be shipped as soon as March.
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