Infectious Diseases Hospital records 80% recovery rate

The Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown has recorded an 80 per cent recovery rate among its patients since it began operating in 2020, according to Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony.

Since that facility –retrofitted from the Ocean View Hotel – began operating due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic exactly two years ago, it has administered health care to a total of 4,183 patients.
While initially it started out as a facility to treat COVID-infected persons, the hospital eventually widened its reach to cater to all persons diagnosed with an infectious disease. Of the 4,183 patients treated at the hospital, 3,786 were tested positive for COVID-19. These figures were revealed by Dr. Anthony on Thursday.
“At Ocean View, over the last two years, we have treated 4,183 patients there. Of these 4,183 (patients), 3,786 were COVID-19 patients, so the 397 were other diseases, but they came to Ocean View because they have these other infectious cases.
“At Ocean View, those who were treated there, we have an 80% recovery rate. So, there were 3,786 who were COVID-positive, and about 3,045 recovered,” Dr. Anthony related. In addition, a total of 741 COVID-19 deaths were recorded at the facility over the past two years.
He reiterated that the hospital has been admitting other patients, including the two recently-confirmed monkeypox cases in Guyana.
“So while we don’t have a lot of COVID patients right now, we have been admitting persons with other infectious diseases. In a different part of the hospital, we have TB patients who require hospitalisation. From time to time, we’ll have patients with HIV, who probably are not taking their meds and are viral suppressed.
“We have also now dedicated an area in the hospital for monkeypox patients. These would be persons who require clinical treatment, but in some cases just require isolation. We don’t have a lot of patients there, we only have two patients,” The Minister said.
Guyana confirmed its first monkeypox case in August, after laboratory testing had confirmed the virus in a Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) male. A week later, another case was detected in a woman, who has since been isolated at the Infectious Diseases Hospital.
This new epidemic has been declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) with the detection of monkeypox in 95 territories.
Since March 2022, over 42,666 cases have surfaced globally. Across the Region, cases have been detected in countries like Cuba, Barbados, Jamaica, Bahamas, and Brazil. However, Dr. Anthony on Wednesday said health officials are currently faced with some difficulties in detecting where Guyana’s first monkeypox patients initially made contact with the infectious virus.
Presently, antiretroviral treatment is being used to treat monkeypox, but it is not widely available around the world. Guyana has made attempts to procure some smallpox vaccines through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). These are manufactured by Bavarian Nordic, and demand for these vaccines is at its peak.