Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 04, 2008 News
Guyana’s capability to address potential outbreaks of yellow fever was yesterday boosted with a donation of 10,000 doses of vaccines from neighbouring Brazil.
Brazilian Ambassador, Mr Arthur Meyer, handed over the vaccines to Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy which comes as part of the ongoing friendly ties shared by the two countries.
According to Ambassador Meyer, Brazil is prepared to cooperate with Guyana in every possible way since the two countries share many similar public health problems, including tropical diseases such as dengue fever and malaria, thus the offering of the vaccines yesterday to guard against yellow fever.
He assured that if the local Health Minister feels the need for further support in terms of additional vaccines, Brazil will comply forthwith.
The donation, according to Minister Ramsammy, will undoubtedly improve the stock of vaccines that Guyana has.
He disclosed that Guyana is one of the few countries that had some time ago made a decision that even though yellow fever is not a transmissible disease here, citizens will nonetheless be vaccinated, therefore reducing the prevalence of the disease, if not eliminating the risk of an outbreak altogether.
A single dose of the vaccine, Minister Ramsammy said, will protect an individual for a lifetime.
He said that Guyana’s decision to guard against yellow fever has over the years yielded success, pointing out that over the last two years several countries in the Region of the Americas has had to deal with the outbreak of yellow fever.
“The consequence of those outbreaks led to a rise in the demand for the yellow fever vaccine because unlike Guyana where we are striving for 100 per cent coverage of children and adults, other countries had no coverage and that is why they had outbreaks.”
In order to prevent future outbreaks, Minister Ramsammy revealed that the huge rise in demand for the yellow fever vaccine resulted in a shortage of vaccine on the world market.
For this reason, the Minister said, there were many times in the last eight years that he had cause to question the global system that restricts the number of manufacturers of vaccines.
In this regard, he divulged that in 2001 he joined the global campaign for Brazil to be recognised as a quality producer of medicines and vaccines.
“We are happy that Brazil has been recognised as such, and they are producing many medicines and significantly they have added to the world’s capacity for the production of vaccines…”
Today one of the major sources of yellow fever vaccine in the world is Brazil, the Minister noted, adding that many countries in the Region are depending on Brazil for their supply.
But although Guyana has not been plagued by the disease, Minister Ramsammy said that at the time the demand rose and the supply became limited, Guyana used its relationship with Brazil to ensure that Guyana would not have difficulties meeting its yellow fever demands.
“We went to Brazil and all we wanted at the time was to ensure that we remain a priority country on their supply list…We had not at the time anticipated that we would have had a donation of vaccines. We just wanted to make sure that whenever we made our request for the procurement of vaccines we would be prioritised.”
However, the Minister said that Brazil opted to go even further by providing the Ministry of Health with the vaccines to meet its immediate and near future needs, demonstrating the genuine type of relationship that has been established.
The donated vaccines have a shelf life which will come to an end in the year 2010.
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