-Health authorities ‘roll out’ mobile COVID-19 testing units, centres
-major focus on ‘high-risk’ ECD corridor

INSTEAD of sitting back and waiting for cases of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease to ‘show up’ at various medical institutions, health authorities have taken testing services to communities which are considered ‘high-risk’.
These COVID-19 services are being delivered through mobile sample-collecting units and screening and sample-collecting centres.

The mobile unit’s first stop was at the East La Penitence Health Centre, on Tuesday. The screening/sample-collecting centres were established on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD) at Herstelling; and on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) at Paradise.

“We had a fixed site, where people would go and get their samples taken, but now we have decided to take the services to the people to make it convenient and efficient…the mobile unit is basically a vehicle so we will take it to communities, which are at a high-risk and those where there is a need for higher testing,” said Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO), Dr. Karen Boyle, in a recording released by the Ministry of Public Health, on Tuesday.

While the centres and mobile units were established to increase the rate of testing, Dr. Boyle said authorities will not test any and everybody. Persons will have to go through a screening process and meet certain criteria before they qualify for testing.

Persons were, as such, asked to visit the mobile unit and the centres only if they have symptoms of COVID-19, which, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) include fever, tiredness, dry cough, aches and pains, sore throat and even diarrhoea.
Once persons meet the criteria for testing, a sample will be taken and sent to the National Reference Laboratory, where the actual test will be conducted.

As it is now, Guyana is using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method to test persons for COVID-19. And, according to health authorities, this type of testing takes about seven hours to produce results.

Although everyone won’t be tested, the initiative remains necessary because the units are targeting communities where persons, who tested positive for the disease, are from.
“We are going to places where there have been COVID-19 cases before…so we are checking to see if other persons in the areas or communities might have the disease,” said the DCMO.

ECD CORRIDOR
A specific area, where major focus is being placed, is the ECD corridor, said a Medical Professional attached to the Regional Health Services, Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), Dr. Mark Vifhuis.

Dr. Vifhuis, who is supervising the facility at Paradise, told the Guyana Chronicle that communities along the ECD corridor are in the spotlight because a lot of COVID-19 cases have been found in those communities.
“Nationally, Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) is in the spotlight, moreso the ECD corridor because that is where we have a lot of patients coming from and also persons who are isolated and in quarantine,” said the doctor.

Guyana had confirmed its first imported case of COVID-19 in Georgetown, on Wednesday, March 11, 2020. That patient, Ratna Baboolall, a 52-year-old Guyanese woman, who had travelled from the United States of America to Guyana on March 5, 2020, presented to the public health system on March 10.

Babaoolall, who was from Good Hope, on the ECD, died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation on March 11. Since then, three of the woman’s relatives had tested positive for the disease, but recovered and were medically cleared.
Considering this case and the many others found on the ECD corridor, Dr. Vifhuis said the ECD is a zone to pay attention to, and, that was why the screening/sample-collecting facility was placed at Paradise.

He said the idea of the centre is the same as others and was established using protocols outlined by local and international health authorities.
In giving his advice to persons, who would want to utilise the services of the centre, Dr. Vifhuis said persons, who notice signs and symptoms of the disease, should call the COVID-19 hotline or the Health Emergency Operating Centre.

Once contact is made, he said there may be instances where health authorities will provide transportation for persons, who may be considered as a suspected case, to travel to the sample-collecting site for the procedure to be undertaken. This will reduce the chances of suspected COVID-19 cases coming into contact with others by eliminating the use of public transportation.

Health authorities have so far tested 464 persons, of which 74 persons were positive and 390 were negative.