7,000 bivalent COVID-19 vaccines expected month-end – Health Minister

Jan 07, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – The Government of Guyana through the Ministry of Health is expected to receive some 7,000 bivalent COVID-19 vaccines in the last week of this month to help in its fight against COVID-19.

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony during his first COVID-19 update for the year on Friday said that the vaccines were ordered through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) mechanism.

“These vaccines, the bivalent vaccines are more effective. We have ordered bivalent vaccines from COVAX and we are expecting to have a shipment by the last week in January… And again, once we get those vaccines, we’ll urge people to come out get the bivalent vaccine,” the Minister said on Friday.

According to the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), “The bivalent COVID-19 vaccines include a component of the original virus strain to provide broad protection against COVID-19 and a component of the omicron variant to provide better protection against COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant. These are called bivalent COVID-19 vaccines because they contain these two components. A bivalent COVID-19 vaccine may also be referred to as “updated” COVID-19 vaccine booster dose.”

The Minister explained that generally, it is recommended that persons who have received their primary doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, be administered the bivalent vaccine. But when the vaccines arrive, the Ministry intends to put out suitable advisories so persons can access the vaccines.

In the meantime, Dr. Anthony is urging persons to get vaccinated with any of the vaccines currently available in the country. He shared that there are increases in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations.

“And with the hospitalisation, we are seeing people who are coming into the hospital having a serve form of COVID and some of them require ICU care,” the Health Minister said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health via its daily COVID-19 dashboard reported that a 75-year-old man from Region Two who tested positive for COVID-19 has died. The man who was receiving treatment at a medical institution died on January 3, 2023.

The Ministry also revealed that within the last 24-hours, 51 new cases were recorded in the country, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 72,397.

There is one patient in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 17 persons in institutional isolation, 311 in home isolation; four persons in institutional quarantine and to date a total 70,778 persons have recovered from the virus.