–Health Minister says

MINISTER of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, has said that the use of herbal medicine to treat COVID-19 has not been scientifically proven, so persons need to be cognisant of this and follow the gazetted guidelines set out by the government guard against the disease.

Dr. Anthony, during Thursday’s edition of the daily COVID-19 update, advised that the COVID-19 vaccine is currently the best defence against the virus.

“Well herbal medicine is what it is, it’s not scientifically proven, it’s just people making a concoction and having faith that it would somehow protect them, that’s not science. So, I urge people if they really want to get protected, they have to take the measures that we’ve been announcing, and of course get vaccinated,” Minister Anthony said.

Earlier this week, Opposition Member of Parliament, Jermaine Figueira, came under fire for statements he made, suggesting that herbal medicine prevents the spread COVID-19.
Adviser to the Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, had called for an immediate retraction of the “reckless and irresponsible” statement.

Dr. Ramsammy said Figueira’s statement was not based on science. He noted that Guyana is utilising public health measures including masking, sanitisation, social distancing, the use of vaccines, all based on scientific evidence, and any suggestion of other ways to cure COVID-19 without evidence is even more reckless.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony said active COVID-19 cases are on the rise due to the Delta variant which spreads faster than previously detected variants.

“This trend is going to go up if people are not taking precautions because what we are seeing now is a surge… as I keep saying over the last couple of weeks.

“We were anticipating this because with a new, more contagious variant, we are going to see more cases, especially if people are going to be complacent, so if people are not wearing their masks properly, they’re not doing the distancing, they’re not sanitising, they’re gathering in groups and being very irresponsible, then we are going to see surges of cases,” the Health Minister reasoned.

He added: “So, right now, over the last 24 hours for example we have another 240, new cases. So, that’s going to take our active cases up now to 2,709,”

So far, 327,519 persons have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 171,084 persons are fully vaccinated across the country. Some 16,768 children, 12 to 17 years old, have received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. (DPI)