No surveillance being done on animals for COVID – Health Minister

…8 new cases detected in 24h

While COVID-19 primarily infects humans, data shows that animal species have also been infected and some are even capable of spreading the virus to humans.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Friday related that while countries have been monitoring the emergence of the virus in some animals, Guyana has not conducted any surveillance as such.
“We know that animals can also get infected with COVID. There have been instances where the deer population in the United States got infected. In other countries, there are other types of animals. We haven’t really done surveillance of animals to determine whether or not they are affected by COVID. Looking at global science, animals can get COVID. They can also pass it on to humans as well,” the Minister outlined during the COVID update.
The World Health Organisation has posted that from current knowledge, wildlife does not play a significant role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in humans, but spread in animal populations can affect the health of these populations and may facilitate the emergence of new virus variants.
In addition to domestic animals, free-ranging, captive, or farmed wild animals such as big cats, minks, ferrets, white-tailed deer, and great apes were infected with the coronavirus.
“To date, farmed mink and pet hamsters have been shown to be capable of infecting humans with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and a potential case of transmission between white-tailed deer and a human is currently under review,” the WHO has noted.
The introduction of SARS-CoV-2 to wildlife could result in the establishment of animal reservoirs. It has been reported that, approximately one-third of wild white-tailed deer in the United States of America have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, initially via several human-to-deer transmission events. The SARS-CoV-2 lineages detected in white-tailed deer have also been circulating in close-by human populations.
Meanwhile, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that most animals became infected after contact with people with COVID-19, including owners, caretakers, or others who were in close contact.

New cases
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has reported that eight new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. This now takes the total number of active cases to 102. Of these, one person remains in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Liliendaal facility; five in institutional isolation, 85 in home isolation, and 11 in institutional quarantine.
The death toll remains at 1228. Thus far, a total of 63,407 cases of the deadly virus was recorded since its first detection back in March 2020.
There are over 62,088 recoveries after 29,183 males and 34,224 females tested positive. COVID-19 tests have amounted to 587,000 since the virus was first detected here. In addition, 61,347 persons have returned for their booster shots thus far.
With respect to vaccination, the most recent statistics showed that 439,616 or 85.7 per cent of adults have taken a first dose and of that amount, some 338,785 or 66 per cent are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, approximately 34,475 or 47.3 per cent of them have received their first dose, while some 25,217 or 34.6 per cent of them are fully immunised.