Pfizer vaccine extended to pregnant, breastfeeding women

The rollout of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has been extended to women who are pregnant and breastfeeding, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony announced on Tuesday.

Guyana received 146,250 Pfizer vaccine doses from the United States in August, which were being used to immunise children between the ages of 12 and 18.

Dr. Anthony, during his daily COVID-19 update, said the government this week started immunising pregnant and breastfeeding mothers with the Pfizer vaccine.

Recently, several pregnant women have been hospitalised with COVID-19 at the Infectious Diseases Hospital and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.

Guyana is expecting 100,000 Pfizer vaccine doses from the COVAX Facility later this week.

Those would be used to immunise pregnant and breastfeeding women.

“What we are working on now is to extend the beneficiaries from the 12 to 18, to include persons who are pregnant and breastfeeding. The new vaccines that we would be getting would be going to that cohort of persons,” Dr. Anthony stated.

Minister Anthony explained that the United States FDA is expected to approve the use of the Pfizer vaccine for children between ages five and 11, and once this is done, Guyana will begin administering the vaccine to this age group.

To date, 362, 919 (70.7 per cent) of the adult population would have received their first dose of one of the COVID vaccines; while 212, 477 (41.4 per cent) persons are now fully vaccinated.

In terms of the rollout for children, 25, 180 (34.5 per cent) received their first dose, while 13, 352 (18.3 per cent) are fully vaccinated.