–says Health Minister as he rallies for vaccination
GUYANA surpassed 500 COVID-19 deaths on July 14, 2021. It was nothing short of a grim milestone, worsened by the fact that 300 of those deaths occurred between March and July 2021.
This evident surge in the number of deaths was accompanied by a similar surge in the number of people becoming infected and the number of people who were hospitalised after they faced the more severe or life-threatening symptoms of the disease, COVID-19.
Even with the country being engaged in a robust vaccination rollout during the same time the surges began, the Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, in a recent update, opined that the emergence of variants of concern could be the causative factor.
“From a clinical perspective, we suspect this is what is happening,” he said when asked if the local authorities can definitively conclude that the emergence of these variants of the virus contributed to the exponential increase in infections, hospitalisations, and deaths.
Though not making a definitive pronouncement, Minister Anthony reminded the public that the only way to ascertain that Guyana has been bedeviled by a variant(s) is to engage in genomic sequencing, a type of genetic analysis, to identify whether a variant is present in the country.
Guyana does not have the in-country capacity to engage in this sequencing and instead, sent 10 COVID-19 samples to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), in Trinidad, for testing in February. No samples have been sent since then.

Contextually, genomic sequencing is a type of genetic analysis used to determine whether COVID-19 samples are the ‘normal’ strain of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 or whether it could be one of the variants. These variants are created when viruses spread and mutate.
According to the BBC, it is not unusual for viruses to mutate, and more often than not, mutations are usually insignificant. Sometimes, however, viruses do mutate into ‘stronger’ or more advantageous forms of the virus. This has been the case with four variants thus far: the Alpha variant that emerged in the United Kingdom (UK) last year, the Beta variant that emerged in South Africa, the Gamma variant that emerged in Brazil and the Delta variant that emerged in India.
These variants are still categorised as coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19, except they have mutated into stronger (or more infectious) forms.
Even without adequate genomic sequencing, the Health Minister said that the local health authorities are assuming that variants are circulating in Guyana and as such, that the population is exposed to more infectious forms of the disease-causing virus.

“Right now, while the Delta variant was first discovered in India, it is now the dominant variant in the United States (U.S.) and we have travel back and forth from the U.S. on a daily basis so one can assume that we have different types of variants that are circulating in Guyana and would have contributed to the clinical picture that we see,” the Health Minister reasoned.
And, the “clinical picture” recorded locally, he related, has been those increasing numbers. He, however, hastened to add that despite the unconfirmed presence of variants, the preventative and protective measures for COVID-19 have not changed, as masks still need to be worn, crowds need to be avoided and adequate sanitisation must be engaged in.

A CRUCIAL WEAPON
Importantly, he said that vaccination remains a crucial weapon in the available artillery to protect against COVID-19. These vaccines, he explained, would not prevent an individual from becoming infected, but would prevent an individual from developing the more serious or life-threatening symptoms thereby preventing hospitalisation and deaths.
“All the persons who would’ve passed away were not fully vaccinated so we don’t have anyone who has been fully vaccinated who would’ve died from COVID and so I think it is making a very good case about why people should be vaccinated because once you are vaccinated, you are more or less protected against the virus,” Dr. Anthony explained.
An individual is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after they receive their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. And, according to statistics provided by the Head of Internal Medicine at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), Dr. Mahendra Carpen, no fully vaccinated person has died after contracting COVID-19, thus far.
In fact, Dr. Carpen related that in April, May and June there were a total of 152 COVID-19 deaths recorded in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the National Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal, Georgetown, but none of those patients were fully vaccinated and only six patients received their first COVID-19 ‘jab’.

While Guyana has recorded a surge in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalisation, children have not been spared. At the beginning of July, a startling revelation was made that children were becoming hospitalised after they were infected- instead of simply having to deal with mild symptoms like before. And again, Dr. Anthony attributed this to some variant or the other.
The challenge is, however, that none of the vaccines used in Guyana have been approved for use in children and as such, children would not be able to benefit from the immunity it could provide them. Resultantly, Dr. Anthony asserted that all of the other precautionary measures, especially wearing face masks, should be adhered to.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali has, however, promised that if Guyana receives any of the US-made Pfizer vaccines that are being given to children abroad, Guyanese children would benefit from those.
For now, though, the Health Minister said that it is up to parents and guardians to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and their loved ones. This is all the more important if any individual has a known comorbidity.
A comorbidity, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), refers to the presence of one or more additional diseases or disorders in the same individual. For example, an individual who is affected by COVID-19 is said to have a comorbidity if that individual also has an underlying condition such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension, or asthma.
Already, Dr. Carpen has revealed that a majority of people who were receiving treatment at the Liliendaal hospital were also diagnosed with comorbidities. One of the recent COVID-19 deaths has been a 16-year-old patient who was infected with the virus but also had a form of cancer, which is a comorbidity.