The Guyana Government is ready to vaccinate children ranging from 5 years to 11 years till next week. Once the United States Food and Drugs Administration gives the approval.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said, “Starting from next week, we are examining the possibility of doing the vaccination of the five to 11 age group because we are anticipating that the US FDA would approve the Pfizer vaccine for this age group as well, so we will have another cohort of people that we will have to work on.”
The Guyana Government currently has been administering the vaccines to children from the age group of 12-8 years, pregnant women and nursing women.
The Health Minister also noted that the children from 12-18 years of age had been fully vaccinated in the majority, but he urged the health officials to increase the number of children who are still left with the first dose pending. The current rate of the fully vaccinated adolescent population is 17,498, or 24 per cent of the adolescent population.
Dr Anthony said that they have been trying to open the school, and once they are open, the ministry would try that no children of that age group should be left out, and more students can get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
They had seen some of that, but in other cases, he thinks people felt that only people going to the school should come, and he also thinks that he had caused some confusion, so they were working with the ministry of education to correct that so that they could appeal to more people.
The Health Minister noted that they would be working with the Ministry of Education and continue going to the different schools on the island to check whether all students are vaccinated. The officials would also advise the parents to get their children fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
