SUPPORT for Guyana’s public health sector “is priority” for China, says Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Georgetown, Shen Huiyong.
The Chinese official assured Public Health Minister, Volda Lawrence Tuesday that while his government will support several other local sectors, “public health is priority”. Huiyong said China is ready to provide grants to construct new hospitals here or to refurbish ones and also provide training for health sector workers.
Huiyong made the disclosure Tuesday at a meeting in Lawrence’s Brickdam, Georgetown office, while introducing a four-member expert team here on a four-week stay to help Guyana’s strategic fight against the zika virus. While in Guyana the experienced medical team will help train local medical employees about zika virus control and strategies; conduct epidemiological survey; undertake surveillance for the vector-spreading zika and do laboratory test for Zika virus specific RNA and antibody detection.
During their one-month visit, the Chinese medical team will also execute technical training programmes to boost the skills of local health workers in the zika eradication effort. Minister Lawrence lauded the Chinese government for “its quick response” to Guyana’s plea for help in the zika fight, citing its ramifications for the regional fight against vector-borne diseases. “This aspect of health is very important to us,” Minister Lawrence noted.
The Minister is particularly interested in capacity building of the nation’s laboratory, she told the medical team. Huiyong agreed Tuesday to broker a closed-door meeting between Lawrence and Chinese Ambassador to Guyana, Cui Jianchun to fine tune additional areas of cooperation between the two countries in the health sector. Guyana and China established diplomatic relations in 1972. Some two months ago the two countries brokered a cooperation pact, and Lawrence used Tuesday’s ceremony to remind the team that the Chinese “are part of us”.
In 1947, a scientific team probing the yellow fever virus in the Zika forest of Uganda stumbled upon what they described as a “hitherto unrecorded virus” in a rhesus monkey. They named the new virus after the location in which it was discovered.