23 H1N1 cases confirmed

Nov 27, 2009 News

There are now a total of 23 confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus in Guyana, out of a total of 140 results which were sent to be tested. Approximately 14 other test results are outstanding at present.
At a press conference held on Wednesday, Minister of Health Dr. Leslie Ramsammy told reporters that the installation of the testing equipment which the Ministry was able to procure is still in progress, while the persons responsible for training the personnel to operate the equipment will arrive in Guyana on December 8 and will leave on December 17.
According to Minister Ramsammy, by the end of 2009, Guyana will reach the stage where the need to send specimens for testing overseas will no longer exist. As it relates to the H1N1 vaccines, Guyana is expected to receive 70,000 doses as the first tranche, while more is expected to follow.
Meanwhile, while the Health Ministry pays CAREC to test each specimen, H1N1 testing for the public health facilities continues to be free. Recently, Minister Ramsammy had said that the Ministry will have to determine how they will treat the private health institutions who continue to get their specimens tested free of cost as well.
However, when the testing commences at the National Reference Laboratory, the private health facilities will be charged a fee, as according to Minister Ramsammy, there will be an avalanche of requests from the private health institutions.
“Once the equipment is running and there is a real-time test, people might send all flu patients to be tested and that will be an expensive thing for us, so we will establish strict criteria by which the private sector could send for H1N1 testing.”
Kaieteur News had reported that as soon as the doctors suspect a person is infected with the virus, they are placed on treatment, since the Ministry does not await confirmation on this.
The process of confirmation is reported to be a rather long one, since CAREC only accepts six specimens to be tested at one time from Guyana.
Although Guyana will have the capacity to test for the virus, Minister Ramsammy said the specimens will also still be tested in Trinidad and Tobago for a short period of time, in order to verify the accuracy.
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.
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.
(Fareeza Haniff)

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23 H1N1 cases confirmed

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