16 new COVID-19 cases recorded

There has been a total of 16 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Guyana, raising the number to 554 positives recorded to date.
This was announced on the Health Ministry’s dashboard on Saturday, which noted that the deaths remain at 22. A gender breakdown of the new cases showed that there were 10 males and six females.
Meanwhile, there are 343 persons in institutional isolation – 38 of those persons are in institutional quarantine and three persons in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit. To date, a total of 5280 persons were tested for the deadly virus.
Newly-appointed Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony has notified that additional doctors and other medical personnel were deployed on Friday to Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo). The Ministry would have also sent testing kits and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to assist with containing the virus.
Numerous reports over the past weeks have put the spotlight on Regions Nine, Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and One (Barima-Waini) for the upsurge in positive cases.
The border regions are heavily affected by the illegal movement of people into the country, infecting smaller communities in the hinterland where medical services are not as accessible as the coastland.
The Ministry’s approach to supply additional resources to these areas is expected to provide much-needed medical relief and care. Over the past months, health workers have complained about working in unsafe conditions where protective gears are lacking.
A few days ago, Dr Anthony said the newly-elected Government is now working to rapidly assess the needs of the Health Ministry.
He acknowledged that the National Reference Laboratory in Georgetown would take more than a week to return a diagnosis, since it is overwhelmed with samples from across the length and breadth of the nation. This puts the country at a disadvantage, and creates room for a larger spread, he contended.
The Minister also related that the Laboratory is working with old medical equipment, which takes a longer time for samples to be processed. As such, they are seeking to completely revamp these operations to meet the needs of the country. This would allow for more tests to be done on a daily basis.
“One of the things that we’re looking at is how can we build the capacity of the National Reference Laboratory. We want to build that to at least 300 tests in 24 hours. With that kind of testing capacity, we will be able to test all those persons who need to be tested,” he had affirmed.
They are also in talks with private medical centres, to assist with sample-testing. This will further enhance the number of processed tests by 200 every day. (G12)