Guinea-Bissau: Arrival of first vaccine doses an ‘important day’ in fight against pandemic – state

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Guinea-Bissau: Arrival of first vaccine doses an ‘important day’ in fight against pandemic – state

8:41 CAT | 22 Mar 2021

File photo: Lusa

The first 12,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine arrived in Guinea-Bissau on Monday as part of a public-private partnership between a South African and African Union telecommunications company.

“Today is indeed an important day for Guinea-Bissau in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic because we have received the first 12,000 doses of the vaccine. It is the AstraZeneca vaccine, which will contribute to implementing our anti-Covid vaccination plan,” said the High Commissioner for Covid-19, Magda Robalo.

Guinea-Bissau has approved the use of three vaccines, approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), Pfizer/BioNTech, Astrazeneca/Oxford and AstraZeneca from India’s Serum Institute.

“It is also important to remember that these doses arrived in Guinea-Bissau because they had been allocated to South Africa, which then discovered a variant that does not allow the use of this vaccine. We have to continue to prevent the multiplication of the virus, we have to work to delay and stop transmission, because otherwise, we will have variants that will not allow us to use the vaccines that are being discovered,” said Magda Robalo.

The High Commissioner for Covid-19 was speaking to journalists at Osvaldo Vieira airport in Bissau, after receiving 12,000 doses of the vaccine, accompanied by the deputy prime minister, Soares Sambu, the minister of foreign affairs, Suzy Barbosa, the minister of health, António Deudna, the African Union ambassador to the country, Ovídeo Pequeno, and the representative of the South African telecommunications company.

“In other countries vaccination started a long time ago. The country is to be congratulated for having received the vaccines,” said Guinea-Bissau’s health minister, ensuring that the first doses of vaccines will be for health sector employees.

Concerning the National Vaccination Plan, the High Commission recently explained that in a first phase it plans to reach 20% of the Guinean population, giving priority to health professionals, health support staff, community health agents, patients with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and chronic renal patients.

The Plan, to be implemented in three phases, aims to reach 70% of the Guinean population to create group immunity that may favour a significant reduction in transmission.

COVAX (a WHO-driven universal and equitable distribution mechanism for Covid-19 vaccines) has already announced that Guinea-Bissau will receive 120,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine by the end of May.

The World Bank plans to support Guinea-Bissau to cover about 15% of the population, with COVAX promising to provide vaccines for about 20% of the population.

Guinea-Bissau has more than 3,500 cases of the new coronavirus, which has already caused the death of 55 people.

Source: Lusa