EARLY last week, Guyana confirmed its first case of monkeypox. A 57-year-old man who resides in Region Four (Demerara- Mahaica) tested positive for the monkeypox virus and has since been isolated to stop the virus’s spread.

Now that monkeypox is here in Guyana, I think it’s worth reflecting on how we grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic (which is, for the record, not over) and how we can try to do better, collectively, this time around.

The responsiveness of our health system, I think, is a good place to start. Weeks before this first case was detected, there were reports of Guyanese being sent abroad for training on testing and treating monkeypox. And so what we learnt last week was that health professionals could readily test a sample from ‘patient zero’ and confirm that he was indeed infected with monkeypox.

This in-country testing capacity is necessary to highlight because Guyana was at pains attempting to test for and confirm the presence of variants (or strains) of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It took us months, in 2021, to know for sure that there were any of the more infectious or more transmissible strains of the virus circulating here in Guyana. The reason was that only a small number of mostly random samples were sent to Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) for testing.

Could an earlier confirmation of the presence of variants make a difference in our health response? We may never know, but I think now, that the debate would be purely academic. What’s more important is that we have the necessary in-country testing capacity to respond more readily. Without this, we might’ve found ourselves waiting weeks before we could confirm that patient zero was indeed infected with monkeypox- by which time, the possibility exists that he could have spread that virus to several others.

Aside from this testing capacity, it is also worth acknowledging that a section of the National Infectious Diseases hospital (the Ocean View facility at Liliendaal, Georgetown) was easily converted into an isolation space for monkeypox patients. In my opinion, this institutional capacity is a good lesson learnt from the pandemic.

Despite the aforementioned ‘wins’, as someone immersed in reporting on the local health sector, I believe that several lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic can be applied to our response to the presence of monkeypox in Guyana.

For me, naturally, a major focus should be ensuring that there is appropriate risk communication in place. I spent countless hours speaking on COVID-19 panel discussions and podcasts, and in focus groups for policy-making purposes just pleading with local authorities to work alongside reporters, producers, and those credible faces in mass communication spheres to engage people on the new and rapidly changing health sector. What was obvious to me was that there mustn’t be a monopoly on information, or the dissemination of information, when it comes to crises like these. Because COVID-19 and monkeypox are new diseases, it is natural for people to have fears and concerns. Unless there are opportunities for people to engage trustworthy, credible sources on those fears and concerns, they may be vulnerable to rampant misinformation or, worse, disinformation.

The second important lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic, for me, is the consideration of individual versus collective responsibility. Surely, we all have the responsibility of doing what we must to protect ourselves. Still, there is also a collective responsibility that befalls us all. And frankly, it is selfish to think that one’s aversion to guidelines and best advice will not impact others. With COVID-19, people who were opposed to wearing masks and practising other safety measures may have contributed to the continued spread of the virus. With monkeypox being a disease spread through close contact, we must be wary of the spaces we are in and what role we might be playing in spreading the harmful virus.

Finally, before I end this column, I believe that monkeypox may result in some degree of stigma- simply because of the visible symptoms associated with it (the scars, swollen lymph nodes, and rashes). With COVID-19, in the earlier months of the pandemic, it was almost taboo to tell others that you were infected- even if that meant that they would be encouraged to get tested and know their status. I interviewed numerous workers and ordinary citizens who spoke about losing sales and job opportunities because of the infection. I hope that, with monkeypox, we realise that this is a new disease that does not seem as life-threatening as COVID-19. So while we take all necessary precautions to protect ourselves, we should not scorn those people who might not have been able to protect themselves well enough.

These are interesting times, from a public health perspective, because we are now grappling with two major crises/ concerns. I hope, however, that the lessons learnt over the past two and a half years help to inform our actions geared at grappling with monkeypox.

If you would like to connect with me to discuss this column or any of my previous works, feel free to email me at vish14ragobeer@gmail.com