The United States Food and Drug Administration is meeting today on the Pzifer and BioNtech’s Covid-19 vaccine for kids ages 5-11.  The meeting will set the stage for the announcement of the vaccine rollout for children within that age category and already the Guyana government is in line to administer the Pfizer vaccine to 5-11 category as early as next week, Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony said today.

“Starting from next week, we are already examining the possibility of doing the vaccination for the 5-11 age group because we are anticipating that the US FDA would approve Pfizer vaccine for this age group as well,” the Health Minister said during his daily Covid-19 update.

Guyana began administering the Pfizer vaccine to children in August this year and while there was a positive start, it has now slowed and less than 40% of the targeted group has received a first dose.

Nevertheless, Dr. Anthony said the Health Ministry will continue to work with the Education Ministry to go into schools and intensify the vaccination campaign.

“Our approach has been once we go to a school, we open it up to the entire community so anybody within that age group can come to the school that are operating in and they can get vaccinated and we have seen some of that but in other cases, I think people felt that only people who are going to that school can come and I think that has caused some confusion,” the Minister pointed out.

So far, 26,966 children have received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine which represents 37% of the children between the age of 12 to 18.

17,489 children have received both doses of the vaccine and that represents 24 % of children in the age group being fully vaccinated.

The Minister said there is still a lot more work to be done and urged parents that they give permission for their children to be vaccinated against COVID.

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