Guyana’s Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony is not happy with the ‘sudden’ disinterest shown by persons in taking the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines being administered in the country.
He said, “Over the last couple of days, we’ve seen more people coming in for second dose and we’ve seen less people coming for first dose. So, that’s something that we have to encourage more people to come and get their first dose, because we have first dose available.”
So far, some 229,846 or 47.2% of the country’s adult population have taken the first dose, with 103,029 ( or 21.2% of the above 18 population) taking both jabs.
Asked what could have caused this sudden decline, the Minister responded: “Well, this is what we’re trying to find out”.
He added, “In all of the regions we’ve seen relative decline in first dose vaccination, and initially, we thought that perhaps of the flood, people were not coming forward but in some areas, the flooding has eased up and we still not seeing people coming out. So, we will do some assessments. We have been talking to the RHOs (Regional Health Officers) in those regions. They have been reporting that people are a little bit more hesitant, and so, we’ll have to see what is driving that hesitancy and then work on maybe demystifying some of the things that people have in their minds.”
The regional first dose rates are as follows:
Region One – 58.6%
Region Two – 43.3%
Region Three – 46.7%
Region Four – 48.7%
Region Five – 49.9%
Region Six – 55.1%
Region Seven – 46.2%
Region Eight – 31.7%
Region Nine – 45.7%
Region Ten – 14.3%
The second dose vaccination rates by region are below:
Region One – 20.9%
Region Two – 21.7%
Region Three – 19.8%
Region Four – 24%
Region Five – 22.1%
Region Six – 22.2%
Region Seven – 16.8%
Region Eight – 11.4%
Region Nine – 16.6%
Region Ten – 5.8%
