…as Guyana steps-up fight against COVID-19 in hinterland regions

The National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF), the Ministry of Public Health and various other ministries and government agencies along with non-governmental organisations on Monday evening held an emergency multi-stakeholder meeting on the alarming increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases in parts of regions 1 and 7.

Decisions were taken to implement enhanced containment measures within the affected areas in these regions and these will be gazetted shortly, the NCTF said in a statement Monday night. According to the body, the enhanced containment measures will include cease work orders for specific areas in the mining sector, screening, wider testing, checkpoints and other measures in several locations within regions 1 and 7. Specific details will be provided subsequently.

These measures are necessary and urgent by the medical experts so as to prevent the wider spread of COVID-19 in these two regions along with other regions. The emergency meeting was chaired by Chairman of the NCTF, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and attended by Vice Presidents Khemraj Ramjattan (Minister of Public Security) and Sydney Allicock (Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs), Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman, Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan, Minister of Education Dr. Nicolette Henry, Pan-American Health Organisation-World Health Organisation (PAHO-WHO) Country Representative Dr. William Adu-Krow, UNICEF Country Representative Sylvie Fouet, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Karen Gordon-Boyle, multiple Permanent Secretaries and several technical and medical experts from the Ministry of Public Health, the Health Emergency Operations Centre and the Guyana Defence Force. Guyana confirmed 21 new cases of COVID-19 today, 18 of which are in the Moruca sub-district of Region 1, and inclusive of 11 teachers (in Moruca).

Indigenous villages are highly vulnerable to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and this vulnerability could be exacerbated if persons, particularly miners and residents of neighbouring Brazil, who test positive for the disease, knowingly enter those villages.
It is against this background that the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) recently suggested that legal charges be instituted against miners and persons, who test positive for the disease in Brazil, and purposely visit Indigenous villages in Guyana. Just recently, a Guyanese man with Brazilian citizenship, who is the Rupununi’s first confirmed COVID-19 patient, fled the isolation facility at the Lethem Regional Hospital compound.

The man, Hamlet Da Silva, lives in Brazil and he would make frequent trips across the border. The man discharged himself from the isolation facility during Monday night and crossed the border illegally. He was arrested in the town of BonFim on Tuesday morning by Brazil’s federal police.

The Guyana Chronicle reported that news of Da Silva’s case has created much worry in sections of Region Eight. Concerns in the villages of Monkey Mountain and Paramakatoi spiraled on Tuesday, since the man travelled to those areas in a sick state a week ago to sell ‘tasso’ among other commodities. He was actively communicating with persons within the two villages, medical sources in the region noted.

Reports are that the man spent six days at Monkey Mountain and he informed residents that he had malaria. As a consequence of this and other prevailing issues involving miners and truck-drivers, the GHRA, in a press statement, said the COVID-19 Health Emergency Committee of Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) made a decision to reduce movement in South Rupununi.

“Thanks to resolute action by Toshaos in the South, national authorities are beginning to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation,” said the human rights body.

The association believes that this realisation has its origins in the stand-off between communities and the authorities over miners being prevented from transiting the communities en route to their mine-sites. GHRA cited an incident when a truck driver/miner forced his way through checkpoints on the basis of being given permission by the Regional Executive Officer (REO) and the Lethem police. The decisions taken at the level of the Region Nine committee, tacitly acknowledge the legal authority of Toshaos and Village Councils to determine who should access their communities.