Guyana gets Moderna vaccines from Korea

The government has received 40, 800 doses of Moderna vaccines from the Government of Korea. The vaccines were handed over Friday afternoon at the Ministry of Health’s Kingston Bond.

“We will use these vaccines as part of our vaccination programme; they are all adult doses.

“We will use for primary doses – first and second doses – but we will also use it for booster doses,” Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony told reporters on Friday.

The United States pledged earlier this month to donate as many Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines as needed to Guyana in an effort to further support the fight against the pandemic.

The first shipment from the US was delayed and will arrive sometime next week. Dr Anthony on Friday explained that the number of vaccines coming into the country is dependent on how many persons take the jab.

“It depends on how fast people are taking vaccines; so we have a projection and we have communicated that projection to the US and over the next couple of months we have a scheduled of how much vaccines would be coming in in different months,” Dr Anthony said.

Dr Anthony recently announced that Guyana was seeking to procure COVID-19 vaccines for children six months to four years old. This follows after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorisation for children in this age cohort to be vaccinated using the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines specifically manufactured for children.

The government has been vaccinating adults and children from five to 11 years old and 12 to 17.