TWO additional laboratories– the Coastal Diagnostic Laboratory and the Sheriff Medical Centre Laboratory– have been granted provisional licences by the Ministry of Health to offer Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test for COVID-19, which means that there are now four laboratories offering PCR testing.
By way of Public notice, the health ministry announced that four laboratories are authorised to conduct real-time reverse transcription PCR (rRT-PCR) testing for COVID-19. These are the National Public Health Reference Laboratory (NPHRL), the Eureka Medical Laboratory Incorporated and the two newly licensed laboratories– Coastal Diagnostic Laboratory and the Sheriff Medical Laboratory. The NPHRL and Eureka have been offering PCR testing since last year. And, even though these two laboratories were the only two licensed places to conduct this “gold standard” test for COVID-19, several local establishments were also offering the test.
The local authorities were forced to crackdown on these establishments and, instead, encouraged them to get laboratories up to standard then apply to the health ministry for the relevant licences.

On Tuesday, during his daily COVID-19 update, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, noted that provisional licences have been granted to the Coastal Diagnostic Laboratory, which is located at the St. Paul’s Retreat Centre at Vryheid’s Lust on the East Coast Demerara (ECD) and the Sheriff Medical Centre Laboratory, located at Sheriff Street. “We tend to monitor for a period of at least three months, and once they satisfy everything we’re looking for and they meet the standards, they’ll get the licence,” Dr. Anthony explained. The laboratories which are conducting PCR tests are required to provide daily updates to the ministry on how many tests were conducted and information on whether those tests yielded positive results; this is reflected in the daily COVID-19 dashboard.
The information provided to the ministry helps the local authorities to conduct their surveillance for the virus and manage those persons who are COVID-positive.
In addition to these four laboratories, eight laboratories at medical facilities are offering antigen tests for COVID-19. These are: The Balwant Singh Hospital; the Eureka Medical Laboratories; the Dr. Leslie Persaud Clinic: Diagnostic Centre; the Woodlands Hospital Limited Laboratory; the Sheriff Medical Centre; the Quest Medical Centre (Georgetown); the Anamayah Memorial Hospital and the Coastland Diagnostic Centre.

UPTAKE OF VACCINES
In addition to testing, the health minister said there has been an increasing uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines that Guyana has been able to secure.
Guyana has so far received 20,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine as a donation from China; 80,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as a donation from India, and 24,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX facility. In addition, Barbados extended to Guyana 3,000 doses of its Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines which were donated to them by the Government of India. Additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccines– the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia– are expected this week. On Monday, it was announced that 31,000 persons have been vaccinated so far. Additionally, it is important to note that vaccination is ongoing in all ten administrative regions. Minister Anthony noted that the constant challenge has been that people of different age groups are visiting the vaccination sites to receive vaccines; however, only persons over the age of 60 and frontline workers, including frontline health workers, have been receiving vaccines. From today, persons over the age of 40 will be inoculated.