Guyana’s health sector taking lead to address impact of climate change

Oct 18, 2010 News

– Dr Ramsammy

Guyana may soon have its own research programme which could detect and even analyse tropical diseases, even as the impact of climate change is realised. The University of Guyana, with support from the Ministry of Health, is expected to lead this effort once funding is made available.
According to Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, there are factors that challenge developing countries as the need for development in various areas is attempted, in the effort to combat arising health situations. And standing at the top of the list of challenges and barriers to development is climate change. “No country will meet its goals and objectives, no country will meet its mandate to deliver the needs of its people if it does not accept that climate change is no longer something we anticipate or that we expect. Climate change is now. It is part of our reality…” Minister Ramsammy asserted.
According to Ramsammy, to Guyana’s credit, it has been readily accepted that climate change is a part of the prevailing reality. In this regard, it is the Minister’s belief that Guyana can today stand proud on the world’s stage willing to acknowledge that there is a problem and endeavour to take leadership in the world.
“We are but a small country but we have played a major role on the world’s stage…God knows we have suffered enough already…and this is just the beginning. Imagine the impacts of climate change on countries…”

Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy

However, Guyana should not simply pat itself on the back for taking up a leadership role as it has also over the years sought to hold the world accountable, evident by the Head of State’s move to put on the developmental agenda global warming and climate change. Guyana, Dr Ramsammy said, has time and again been disappointed by the ambivalence of the world as seen in Copenhagen. “Of the 47 countries that made presentations in Copenhagen, only four presented climate change in a context that includes the impact of climate change on human health; thus far the focus has been on the economic and environmental challenges but very little attention has been placed on human health.”
For this reason, UG’s foray into this area demonstrates Guyana’s comprehensive approach to global warming and climate change, said Dr Ramsammy, even as he asserted that a successful response to climate change cannot be narrow or limited but rather should be examined from all aspects. And at the very heart of climate change, he said, is its impact on human health.
“Within our country our institutions must take their place. And while there are hundreds and even thousands of universities around the world that now have adopted climate change as an important issue for studies and researches, there are few indeed that are engaged in studying the impact of climate change on human health…The University of Guyana stands tall in approaching this issue from yet another perspective.”
And in pursuing the proposed project, it demonstrates not only the efficacy but the boldness of Guyana’s low carbon development strategy, according to Dr Ramsammy. The research project, he added, should be seen in the context of Guyana’s leadership in the world as the low carbon strategy is not just a national approach. He underscored that while measures are being made to implement a national programme, Guyana is also exemplifying to the world how to both adapt and mitigate in terms of global warming and climate change. “We have turned our backs on the days when we think that Guyana must always be a recipient of other people’s good ideas. We are standing tall in Guyana and saying that while we will never turn our backs on any good ideas regardless of where they come from we are also unwilling not to be the genesis of good ideas.”
With the intent of supporting the Ministry of Health in addressing the challenge created by the existence of tropical diseases, the University of Guyana just last week held a three-day workshop geared at addressing the importance of Tropical Disease Research. The technical-natured workshop was hosted in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and was geared at preparing a grant proposal to the World Health Organisation’s Tropical Disease Research Programme (WHO/TDR) for funding of a three year study of three tropical diseases found in the Amazon basin area. The proposed grant is valued at US$210,000 and according to Dr Emanuel Cummings, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, it is intended to address the presence of Dengue Fever, Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis, commonly referred to as ‘Bush Yaws’, all of which are present in Guyana but require much investigation.
The proposal, Dr Cummings explained, will seek to conduct surveys for the identified diseases, their impact and the identification of insect vectors which may cause their transmission from one person to another. “It is expected to be a project in which the training capacity of the University’s Faculty of Health and Natural Sciences will be enhanced, along with the improvement of the institution’s laboratory facilities for training which will include parasitology and tropical diseases,” he added.