Immigration officers need to be attentive when screening arriving passengers – CMO

Coronavirus…

Noting that some arriving passengers fail to fill out certain parts of the form used to screen for suspected cases of coronavirus, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Shamdeo Persaud is urging immigration officers to pay more attention to this.

Addressing a gathering of stakeholders during a coronavirus symposium held at the National Cultural Centre on Wednesday, Dr Persaud explained that persons arriving in Guyana are required to complete a form which requires them to indicate the countries they would have visited within the last six weeks.
However, he noted, some persons fail to answer that question.
“[They] just leave that part of the form blank,” Dr Persaud informed.
As such, he called on immigration officers to pay more attention to this when they are screening arriving passengers.
“We’ve been asking that immigration officers pay keen attention to that area,” Dr Persaud said, explaining that the list of countries to look out for expands beyond China – where the virus originated.
In its last statement to the media, the Ministry of Public Health had revealed that 18 persons were under surveillance for signs of the virus.
The Ministry had revealed that since the commencement of active monitoring at ports in Guyana on the January 18, a total of 54 persons arrived in Guyana with history of travel from high-risk areas.
The Ministry said 51 persons arriving from mainland China or Hong Kong were screened.
Thirty-seven of these persons were Chinese Nationals, 12 Guyanese (10 Students, one tourist and a child) and one each from Finland and the United States of America.
Two Ukrainians and one Singaporean travelled from Singapore through Europe to Guyana and were also cautiously screened and cleared for entry to Guyana.
Fifty-three persons were contacted with daily telephone calls from the Ministry of Public Health.
One person (the female traveller from Finland) was not contacted and on further investigation, was found to have left Guyana the day after arrival for Suriname.
Four persons, when contacted during the monitoring, indicated that they were not feeling well and were visited by a medical team from GPHC and Linden Hospital. All four were examined and temperature checks were done. All were diagnosed with other medical conditions and cleared as suspects for COVID-19.
Since the monitoring programme commenced, 32 persons were found to be free from signs and symptoms of the infection after 14 days since arrival and were declared free of COVID-19.