Guyana acquires H1N1 testing equipment

Oct 23, 2009 News

The Ministry of Health has finally acquired the equipment to test for the H1N1 (Swine Flu) virus in Guyana.
This is according to Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, who told Kaieteur News yesterday that the equipment is currently being installed at the National Public Health Reference Laboratory.
He explained that health personnel are also in the process of being trained to operate the equipment. This training is expected to be completed within the next two weeks.
However, while Guyana now has the capacity to test for the virus, Minister Ramsammy said the testing will be done at the laboratory, but the specimens will also still be tested in Trinidad and Tobago for a short period of time, in order to verify the accuracy.
But, by the end of November, Guyana will be exclusively testing for the virus. Recently, the Ministry of Health sourced a total of $8 million from its partners to establish the capacity to conduct the H1N1 testing in Guyana instead of sending its specimens overseas.
“Given the fact that H1N1 is here in the world to stay and it is part of our health story in Guyana, we believe that we should have the capacity to test right here so that we could reduce the time it takes (to diagnose),” Minister Ramsammy had said.
It was noted that the money was not sourced from the regular budget of the Health Ministry and the government was not asked for assistance in sourcing the money.
Upon the emergence of the virus, the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) gave a sum of money to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to help the region respond to the H1N1 virus.
From that sum of money, Guyana is benefiting in a number of ways, including the expansion of their DNA testing capacity and now the capability to test for the virus.
Meanwhile, thus far a total of seventeen H1N1 cases have been confirmed in Guyana, as 114 results have returned. The Health Ministry is now awaiting the results from another nine suspected cases.
It is estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) that 60 million people will be infected with H1N1 within the next year and two billion people will also be infected within the next few years.
It is expected that the first shipment of the H1N1 vaccine is to arrive in the region during the latter part of next month, even as efforts are engaged to gear for further attacks from the virus.
The Health Ministry was in an active arrangement with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Revolving Fund in order to procure the vaccine.
Minister Ramsammy explained that the Caribbean, Central America and South America, depending on whether there will be one dose or two doses will probably need between 400 and 500 million doses of the vaccine if they are going to vaccinate the entire population.
He added that if one dose is used and only certain groups are vaccinated, then only 250 million does will be needed.
Fortunately because of solidarity among the countries and the relationship that Guyana shares PAHO/WHO and the Revolving Fund, the Ministry of Health is in active arrangement with them to procure the 200 million vaccines.
(Fareeza Haniff)

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Guyana acquires H1N1 testing equipment

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