Guyanese Online

Government’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign using the Russian Sputnik V vaccine has not been approved by the WHO or the FDA.

Sep 21, 2021- Kaieteur News – In its most recent recommendations, the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that “people who received all or some of the recommended doses of a COVID-19 vaccine not listed for emergency use by WHO (World Health Organisation) and not authorised by FDA (US. Food and Drugs Administration) may be offered a complete FDA authorised COVID-19 vaccine series.”

The recommendation also states that persons should wait at least 28 days after being administered the last dose of the non-authorised vaccine before being administered the FDA-authorised vaccine.  (Note – The Russian Sputnik V Vaccine is a non-authorized vaccine. It has been the most widely distributed vaccine in Guyana, purchased by the Government for millions of US dollars)       

It should be noted that the only vaccine given both emergency used authorisation and FDA approval is the Pfizer-Biotech COVID-19 vaccine. While the AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sinovac, Johnson and Johnson and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were approved for emergency use by the WHO.
But following the CDC’s announcement, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, insisted that he was not aware of the latest recommendations released by the CDC.

Commenting on this during an interview yesterday, the Minster said “from a medical perspective it doesn’t make much sense,” since a person who has been administered both doses of a vaccine is considered fully immunised.

“If having received two doses of a vaccine …we are going to give that person now two additional doses of vaccine, well that doesn’t make sense. So from a medical perspective, at this point, I would say it doesn’t make much sense,” the Minister stressed.

However, the Government’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, which is one of the vaccines being used to immunise the adult population, is currently the only vaccine being use here that has not received approval by the WHO for emergency use nor has it been approved by the FDA.
Nevertheless, Minister Anthony is assuring the public that the Sputnik V vaccine is safe against the disease.

“What I can say is that the vaccine, Sputnik V, is safe because we have seen the results published in the ‘Lancet’ which is one of the most prestige journals in medicine and in the publication it talks about the efficacy about the vaccine and we have had subsequent publication after that,” he added