By Sharmain CornetteGuyana is yet to receive the much anticipated supply of HINI vaccine which has been donated by the Pan America Health Organisation (PAHO).Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, disclosed that while he is aware that the shipment of vaccine is still on its way,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, he was not in a position to give a precise date for its arrival.“Every day I get a call with somebody asking what’s happening with the HINI vaccine.I can only tell you what I know, which is that it is on its way. It’s like the old clich? the cheque is in the mail,Wholesale Adidas Hockey Jerseys,” the Minister opined.Guyana is one of the countries that PAHO has endowed with a supply of the HINI vaccine.And according to Dr Ramsammy, about 75,000 doses of the vaccine are likely to be available to the health sector shortly.“Where it is exactly on the trail I don’t know but if we keep you in the dark it is only because we are also in the dark that has been my policy.The policy in the Ministry of Health is to communicate with the citizens of Guyana on every good thing and every bad thing as we know it. So vaccines are coming and we are prepared to vaccinate the population but I have no idea where it is,” said the Minister.The Minister has however disclosed that the expected endowment will only satisfy part of the local requirement.“We have had a vaccination plan…but our plan never catered for the vaccination of every citizen. It was something beyond our financial capacity at this time so we had identified a number of priority components which included segments of our population.”Through the identification process, the Minister had revealed that about 160,000 persons will become eligible to receive the HINI vaccine.Among the identified population, Dr Ramsammy said, will be approximately 90,000 to 100,000 children under five years old. Additionally, about 40,000 to 50,000 persons living with other conditions, for which co-morbidity with the HINI virus may prove to be very serious and even fatal,Wholesale Jerseys China, are likely to be a part of the first bout of the vaccination process.The latter group,Cheap Jerseys For Sale, which represents persons with certain chronic conditions, was identified as part of the Ministry’s observance of other countries’ experiences.In the meantime, the Minister disclosed that his Ministry is currently locked in negotiations with various entities, particularly Central Government, in order to ensure that the ability to have the target population vaccinated becomes a reality.However the delayed arrival of the vaccine has not swayed the public health efforts to boosts its capacity to test for the HINI virus at the National Public Health Reference Laboratory. A recent training programme facilitated by the officials from the Centre of Diseases Control in Atlanta, United States, saw staffers from the lab being trained to test for the influenza-type virus.“We took a decision that we were going to test for HINI in Guyana and we have set up capacity to do so. The public Health Reference Lab is now with the capacity to test for HINI.”And this move was not only engaged because of the threat of the recent virus but because the health sector was also previously threatened by other viruses the likes of SARS and the Avian Flu.It was also in recognition of the limitations of the regional facility (the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre – CAREC) that the local Health Ministry sought to put measures in place to do its own testing. “The agreement for us in the Caribbean has not worked because CAREC has never been able to develop capacity to respond to our needs for testing.It has done an excellent job but it has not been able to meet the absolute needs of the countries.”According to Dr Ramsammy, in any country that faces an outbreak threat,China Jerseys Cheap, limiting laboratory testing indicates that capacity is also limited. As a result,Cheap Jerseys Online, testing cannot be used as a diagnostic tool but rather a monitoring tool, said Dr Ramsammy.But according to the Health Minister, Guyana was not comfortable with a regional capacity that provided merely “after the fact analysis” and monitoring possibilities.“These are important public health perimeters but we also need real time diagnostic tools and we believe as we respond to increase threats of influenza we must have existing real time diagnostic tools.“That is why we decided to invest in establishing lab capacity that could respond in real time without the limitation.”At the moment, the Minister said that staffers of the lab are undergoing verification exercises and are capable of running specime