The Ministry of Health has its sights set on the vaccination of children under the age of five in the coming weeks but maintains that access will be an issue.
Moderna and Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccines might come into full distribution within days for children under the age of five.
This comes after two companies behind the vaccines made an application to the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) for authorized use.
That authorization is set to come soon as some independent vaccine experts unanimously voted to recommend the shots for use in children under five years old.
However, with the problem of vaccine access still lingering, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, during its COVID-19 Update pointed that while the vaccine manufacturing is good news, access will be an issue as the developed countries will essentially use up most of it.
“Right now there is a vaccine that has been given emergency authorization used in the US. They are administering that right now. We will see how that vaccination grows but like with all these challenges it’s going to be difficult to access it because there are limited quantities.
“The developed countries very often will use these vaccines in their countries so there’s a scarcity in the global market. I think it would take us a few months to access these vaccines.”
As of now, the Minister said that the drive will focus on the vaccination of children older than five years old.
“Right now it depends on access. Our focus now is going to be on the 5-11 years old.
Guyana started its vaccination drive two weeks ago for children from ages 5-to 11 and so far the uptake has been in the hundreds.
Under the circumstances, the Ministry of Health is encouraging people to have their children vaccinated.
In the process, parents under the law are the only authority to give permission to have their kids vaccinated.
While vaccination has not been known to keep a person from getting COVID-19 Virus, it is known for preventing persons from becoming severely ill and the sad reality of those ill persons dying.
