HEALTH MINISTER, Dr. Frank Anthony, has advised against the taking of filaria pills on the same day as the COVID-19 vaccine as an extra precautionary measure to mitigate against any potential side-effects.

“There’s nothing that prevents taking the vaccine if you had filaria pills,” the minister said, but explained that the ministry developed internal protocols “out of an abundance of caution” to monitor any side-effects from the vaccine.

The side-effects, he explained, would be difficult to track and monitor once the two medical interventions are taken at the same time. But, he emphasised that there is no evidence to suggest that medical issues may arise if the two are taken together.

He also noted that as of Wednesday, 166,000 people from Regions Three and Four have taken their pills. And, nearly 2,000 frontline, healthcare workers have been vaccinated so far.

In March, the pills will be distributed in Regions Six and 10, before the health personnel move onto the other regions. The entire distribution should be finished by May. “If we’re successful at getting about 70 per cent of the population to take these tablets, we would be able to eliminate filaria from Guyana,” the Health Minister affirmed previously.

In October 2017, the local health authorities launched a reconceptualised, multi-year Mass Drug Administration (MDA) campaign, seeking to eradicate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF), commonly called filaria or “big foot,” in Guyana. Through this, efforts are made to have at least 70 per cent of the population consume the ‘filaria pills’- Diethylcarbamazine citrate (DEC), Albendazole (ALB) and Ivermectin (IVM) – to sterilise and kill the worms that cause filaria.

Filaria is caused by bancrofti worms and is transmitted by culex mosquitoes. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it affects the body’s lymphatic system, which functions to remove unwanted fluids from the body and transports ‘lymph’- a fluid which contains white blood cells that help to fight infections. Though Guyana is one of few countries in the Americas to still have this disease, if this year’s MDA is successful, Guyana will be able to eliminate it.

The success of this multi-year MDA lies squarely on the population taking these pills, this year. If not, Guyana would have to restart another MDA and try to eliminate LF once again. “If you go beyond a certain time period, we’ll have to start all over again because that first dose medication which was distributed in 2017) would not be all that effective and when you do the second dose, it’s not going to have the same impact,” Dr. Anthony explained.