–was tested positive for COVID-19

AN 11-year-old child, who was diagnosed with Cancer and the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), died while receiving treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
This newspaper understands that the child, who lived in Grove on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD), was admitted to GPHC’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on Wednesday, but succumbed despite valiant efforts by doctors to save her life.

Prior to her demise, she was swabbed and tested for COVID-19. And, the result of the test, which returned on Thursday, showed that she was positive.
Reliable sources, however, clarified that while she would have tested positive for this disease, she is not being listed as a COVID-19 death. This is said to be the case because the complications she experienced were related mainly to cancer.
Kaieteur News had reported, in 2017, that Guyana has the highest incidence of cancer-related mortality when compared to the Caribbean Region. This data was released by the Ministry of Public Health.

According to the article, based on the ministry’s database, Guyana ranks highest with an incidence rate of 46.9 per cent and a mortality rate of 21.0 per 100,000 persons.
The Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization (PAHO/ WHO), in a 2012 report, had said that cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, globally, with approximately 14 million new cases.
Countries from across the world, while contending with a high number of Cancer-related deaths, have also been faced with the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected close to 50 million persons and claimed over 1.2 million lives. Guyana accounts for close to 4,500 of those cases, and 134 deaths.
“When you look around the world, you see that Guyana is not unique…everybody is going through the same thing, and if you look at the case fatality rate, Guyana is there like any far more advanced country.

“There is nothing more wrong in Guyana or less wrong, we are in the same situation as everybody else in the world,” said prominent Cardiologist, Dr. Mahendra Carpen, during a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle.
Data released recently by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) shows that 94 per cent of Americans who have died with the new coronavirus had other underlying health conditions. The report shows that COVID-19 was the only cause of death listed in just six per cent of deaths.
On average, those who died with other underlying conditions had 2.6 additional conditions of causes of death. Those underlying conditions include respiratory diseases, influenza, pneumonia, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, dementia and more.

Authorities in Guyana have noticed a similar trend, with persons assigned as COVID-19 deaths dying from “many other things.”
In explaining the local situation, Dr. Carpen said: “A lot of people assigned as COVID-19 deaths are dying from so many other things, but just happen to be COVID-19 positive.

“There are a number of patients who died from stroke, kidney failure, diabetic ketoacidosis, but unfortunately, that is the way deaths are reported during the pandemic…that is just how it is.”
A death due to COVID-19 is defined by the WHO as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to the COVID-19 disease.
The organisation further said there should be no period of complete recovery from COVID-19 between illness and death.