Guyana has recorded another COVID-19 death, Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence has confirmed.

The country has 63 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 7 deaths attributed to the virus.

According to health officials, the victim, a male Guyanese, died while receiving treatment in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He was among 5 persons in ICU at the country’s tertiary health care facility. His identity remains unknown.

Hours earlier Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) reported that there were no new cases recorded within the 24-hours.

The MOPH reported earlier today that 305 persons have been tested for the virus.So far 9 persons have recovered from the virus while 14 persons have been placed in institutional quarantine and 48 persons have been placed in institutional isolation.This past week, Guyana recorded a rapid increase in confirmed cases, with 18 cases adding to the national tally within the past 7 days.

The health authorities here will soon have a welcome boost in their capacity to test for the disease, as the country is set to receive some 7,000 COVID-19 test kits from the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO).

Despite the increase in the number of cases here in Guyana, PAHO/WHO’s Dr. William Adu-Krow says he does not see an immediate need for a review of the testing guidelines, as he believes that Guyana is well equipped to conduct those tests.

“We are not running out of test kits; we have over 2,000, and only over 200 have been used… And today, we are expecting about 7,000 more test kits,” Dr. Adu-Krow said during a virtual press briefing on Friday.

According to the Johns Hopkins University there are over 2.3 millions confirmed cases of the pandemic globally. The United States leads all national figures with over 732,000 recorded cases.New York is the epicenter of the pandemic in the US.