Health authorities record low COVID-19 vaccination rate among children

Nov 13, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Local health authorities are noticing a relatively slow uptake of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine among children between the ages of 12 and 18 years, according to the Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony.
Back in August, the Government had launched the rollout of the vaccination programme for adolescents having received a total of 146,250 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the United States of America. The administering of the vaccine was to prepare for the safe reopening of schools, as well as protecting children against the deadly disease.
Since the rollout of the vaccine, some schools re-opened their doors for full face-to-face learning, while others have been operating on a rotational basis.
The Minister, while explaining the country’s current vaccination rate in his daily COVID-19 update on Wednesday, said that health officials are seeing hesitancy among the younger population.
“The group that we are worried about where we have seen relatively low uptake would be the 18 to 40 age group, and that’s something because the numbers are relatively low in that age group,” he explained.
Noting that this is a concern, another problem officials are seeing is that persons in that age group have not been returning for the second vaccination dose.
With regard to the children population, they are also observing, a “relatively slow” uptake within the 12 to 18 years age cohort. “While we have made the vaccine available for 12 to 17, we have open[ed] up to that age group given the Pfizer vaccine…The uptake there has been relatively slow,” the Minister mentioned.
During the interview, Dr. Anthony shared that since authorities made the Pfizer vaccine available to everyone 12 years and older more persons are coming forward to get vaccinated. The Pfizer vaccine and Sinopharm vaccine are now the more preferred vaccines, he noted.
While he did not state why young people are hesitant, the Minister is urging persons to get vaccinated, and those persons who have been inoculated with their first dose are urged to return for their second dose.
The Ministry of Health via its Facebook page shared that as of November 12, the current COVID-19 vaccination rate for adolescents is that a total of 28,195 persons received their first dose of the vaccine representing 38.7 percent of that population, while 19,314 received their second dose representing 26.5 percent of the population under discussion.
Meanwhile, 76 percent of the adult population have been vaccinated with the first dose, and 50.5 percent have been vaccinated with their second dose.

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Health authorities record low COVID-19 vaccination rate among children

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