The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) will this week announce an agreement to support CDB Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) procure COVID-19 vaccines as well as related supplies and other healthcare expenditure to strengthen health care systems to respond to the pandemic.
The details of the agreement will be outlined at a virtual event on Tuesday July 20, 2021. Dr. Gene Leon, President, CDB and Ricardo Mourinho-Félix, Vice President, EIB will address the forum.
Meanwhile, the Government of India is working towards providing the virtual platform Co-WIN -Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network – to the Government of Guyana to assist in its efforts to manage COVID-19 vaccination programme.  Co-WIN is a tech-based platform facilitating the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccination, the Indian High Commission here said in a press release.
Co-WIN is a shared vision of universal vaccination and addresses the need for mass vaccination. The platform has been in use in India successfully managing the vaccination programme across the country of a population of around 1.4 billion, the high commission said. “In its massive vaccination programme, India has already vaccinated around 320 million of its population with first dose and around 80 million fully vaccinated. Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony had participated in the Co-WIN Global Conclave held by India on 5th July 2021.  During the event Anthony had indicated Guyana’s keen interest to acquire Co-WIN platform from India.  High Commissioner of India, Dr. K.J. Srinivasa has indicated that the High Commission of India has since taken up the matter with the Ministry of External Affairs of India for providing the platform to the Ministry of Health of Guyana and the necessary steps and procedures are in progress.
According to the release, Co-WIN will enable equitable vaccination across the country with multiple modes for registration to ensure accessibility for all, unbiased distribution of vaccines through a single source of data to remove information asymmetry and align stakeholders, dynamic architecture capable of evolving and accommodating changes as per circumstances, built for a scale of a billion plus citizens, and data on vaccination and recording of AEFI (adverse event following immunization) helps form data-driven public health policy and evaluate the efficacy of different vaccines.  It helps vaccine delivery management system, real time tracking of stock and temperature, real time recording of vaccination event and is open and interoperable enabling innovation. It gives various options: option of multiple photo IDs and languages, book a vaccination slot as per convenience, check schedule and download certificate, uniform access across private or public, fixed or mobile, registering vaccinating organization, vaccination control, based on both vaccines and categories, plug and play solution for vaccinators, transparency of data for all stakeholders, etc.
The high commission said the Government of India had conveyed its willingness to share the Co-WIN platform to assist other countries in their efforts to vaccinate its population.  Other countries can benefit from it as it is democratizing technology with its inclusivity and accessibility, multiple modes of registration and multilingual for diversity and parameterized inputs for flexibility.  It removes information asymmetry, issues vaccination certificates centrally, universally verifiable and Dashboard access to larger public.  Using data driven feedback to evolve vaccination policy, it tracks AEFI.  It can be customized and modified based on needs of each country, data security and sovereign autonomy over the system is provided, and is end-to-end process. The High Commission looks forward to finalise the process of adoption of Co-WIN by Guyana soon.  It will be another concrete step in the increased bilateral collaboration between India and Guyana in several areas, particularly in the health sector.  The High Commission is already working with the Ministry of Health of Guyana on a number of healthcare related projects to enable technological and logistical support by agencies of the Government of India.
