Anxiety among population due to COVID-19 lowered – Health Minister

…mental health, long COVID support included in health system response

Great anxiety among the population, which was brought on by the presence of COVID-19 here in Guyana, has been lowered when comparing the levels at the time the virus was detected here to the present.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony shared on Tuesday that health authorities now have a better understanding of the coronavirus, resulting in effective measures to lower the anxiety levels generally. However, there is still the need to be vigilant and take all precautions.
“At the beginning when people were locked away because of the curfew and there was a lot of restriction on movement, at that point in time people found it more challenging. Now that the society is more opened up, I don’t think people are so confined and some of the challenges or anxieties that people might have had in the early part of the pandemic have eased.”
The Health Minister added, “We now have a better understanding of the disease and because of that, we have been able to give advice. With that advice, we have been able to reduce anxiety generally among the population. However, we still need to be vigilant. I think some people now, they believe we don’t have to take the necessary precautions to prevent COVID-19.”
Integrated into the health system’s response to the novel coronavirus is support for persons who are suffering from mental health issues due to the pandemic, or long COVID post recovery.

A percentage of COVID-19 patients would experience long COVID – which causes symptoms to persist weeks or even months after recovery. The pandemic has brought on mental health issues in various countries, in both recovered patients and persons who have never contracted the virus.
“There are categories of persons who would have been infected with COVID and the estimates are about 10 to 30 per cent of those persons infected can end up with long COVID. Some of the persons infected with COVID can have symptoms relating to mental health. So, we’re seeing a subset of patients who would have fatigue, brain fog, and that’s partly due to inflammation of the brain. This is something that we have to pay attention to,” he identified.
Taking these factors into consideration, any person suffering from such challenges is asked to reach out to the long COVID unit under the umbrella of the Health Ministry, which will provide the necessary intervention. The hotlines dedicated to COVID-19 response are also active.
It was highlighted, “The unit that we have set up to deal with long COVID would be assessing these types of patients…The bottom line is that anybody, whether you have anxiety because of COVID, then you can come to the hospitals for service so that the doctors can examine, advise you. If it is that you have COVID and experiencing signs and symptoms of long COVID, then it is also important that you come back to the hospital so that an assessment can be done and you can get good medical advice.” (G12)