Deputy Health Minister of Georgia, Tamar Gabunia: Elderly people will be the first ones to receive the vaccine

Earlier on Thursday, Deputy Health Minister of Georgia, Tamar Gabunia stated that the vaccine will first be available to elderly citizens. She added that there is a certain protocol that a country should follow in order to receive even a single dose of the new anti-COVID-19 vaccine.

Georgia is expecting to receive three vaccines authorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA): Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna. In November last year, the head of National Disease Control Centre (NCDC), Amiran Gamkrelidze announced that Georgia is expecting to receive a vaccine in either March or April 2021 via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (Covax). According to Gamkrelidze, Georgia has ordered a total of 1,400, 000 doses for 700,000 people (in order for the vaccine to work, each individual recipient must receive two shots). Georgia has already spent a total of 17 million USD to receive the initial doses of vaccination, and 4 million USD were spent for the country to be able to make a choice between the three types of vaccines approved by the WHO and FDA.

In December, the head of the NDCC outlined the protocol of vaccination in Georgia as follows: the first recipients of the vaccination will be medics, epidemiologists and elderly people residing in the nursing homes. Those groups will then be followed by people over 75, people over 65, and the individuals under 55 who suffer from various chronic diseases. Shortly after the announcement was made, Amiran Gamkrelidze tested positive for COVID-19.

Over the last 24 hours there were 1, 612 new cases confirmed in Georgia, as well as 28 deaths and 419 recoveries. In the last 24 hours, a total of 15,492 tests were conducted, 6,408 of which were PCR tests, and the remaining 9,084 were rapid tests. Since February 2020, there were 235, 491 cases documented in Georgia, 223, 695 out of which have successfully recovered, and 2,694 have died. There are currently 9,076 active cases of the COVID-19 in the country, and the new strain of highly infectious “British” coronavirus has been detected in Georgia. The imposed curfew and other healthcare-related regulations remain in place until the government’s meeting later this month, which will determine whether the epidemiological situation in the country has improved well-enough to have some of the restrictions removed.