— Guyana better prepared for monkeypox, says Minister Manickchand

AMID concerns of Guyana’s first reported case of monkeypox and the reopening of schools across the country, Education Minister Priya Manickchand on Wednesday gave the assurance that the ministry is well prepared and schools will be reopening as scheduled.

Minister Manickchand, who was at the time speaking on the sidelines of an event, said the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the severe effects of closing schools.
“We learnt from COVID-19 that schools must be the last place to close and the first place to open because too much gets lost. We know that the world has suffered tremendous learning loss in children, that is skills and learning that children had acquired pre-COVID got lost when they stayed home,” she said, adding: “We know that more children were physically, sexually, emotionally abused during COVID, so I told you about some of the measurable things and some of the things that we can’t calculate.”

She explained that the damage of closing schools prematurely is very severe; however, in the advent of an outbreak again, the ministry is now more than ever prepared.
“Damage is way too great, way too big when we close schools; we don’t have any intention of ever closing schools again, whether circumstances in the world will dictate that is something we will have to watch and see,” she said.

“What I do know is that we are in a better place to respond to school closures now if we had to close. I want to be very clear, there is no intention to close schools, we expect to open all of our schools as normal on September 5,” Manickchand added.

FULLY EQUIPPED
According to the minister, all schools across the country are fully equipped with hand-washing facilities and both pupils and students were previously sensitised on social distancing to avoid widespread infection of viruses.

“We have for the first time all schools with hand-washing facilities, running water and soap and other kinds of facilities to keep ourselves clean and sanitised. And we have had periods of COVID about how we can appropriately distance ourselves using six feet; there are certain activities that might be limited.”

She noted further that while some activities might have to be limited, the ministry is looking forward to hosting its annual sporting events after a two-year hiatus. “We are looking forward to having sports this year, inter-house, inter-school, inter-region and national sports.”

On Monday, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony announced that the country had recorded its first case of the monkeypox virus. The first case is identified as a male minibus operator in his 50s from Region Four.

The case was confirmed as health officials were able to collect samples and do the required testing. It was revealed that this patient does not have a recent travel history.

STABLE CONDITION
“We have since isolated the patient. So, that patient is now in an isolated area at the Ocean View Hospital, and that patient is stable and is doing very well,” Minister Anthony said.
Contact tracing has been done and persons who would have been in proximity of the man have been quarantined.

Meanwhile, President, Dr Irfaan Ali on Monday mentioned that Guyana has had systems in place since the announcement of the monkeypox outbreak by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a public health emergency of international concern in July.

“We had the systems in place, so I’m very confident the Ministry of Health will be dealing with this. As a matter of fact, we have already ordered, some time ago, the vaccines although they are in very limited supply,” the President said.

President Ali went on to say that the system at the Ocean View facility has already been activated and with the confirmation of this first case, there will be greater monitoring.
He went on to add that at this time there will be no restrictions put in place as he mentioned that there is no need for those, calling instead for persons to be responsible.

President Ali also confirmed that the family of the man who is Guyana’s first case was already tested and will be isolated, even as contact tracing will take place.
Surveillance personnel at various borders and healthcare facilities in the country have already been trained to detect the virus.

The country’s Health Ministry has already placed an order for some monkeypox vaccines which are currently in high demand across the world. These vaccines are said to be scheduled to arrive in Guyana by the end of September.