Health Ministry collaborating to combat gastro outbreak – Health Minister

Mar 16, 2013 News

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An intensified response to the gastroenteritis outbreak in sections of Region One has seen the Ministry of Health seeking to collaborate with a number of agencies, said Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran.
His comments came when he convened a press conference at Ramphal House, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown, on Wednesday.
Among those on board the operation are the Ministries of Local Government and Regional Development and Housing and Water. The other agencies include the Civil Defence Commission, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the Food and Drug Department, the National Public Health Reference Centre and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since the outbreak, which was highlighted in the media recently, the Ministry of Health has been on high alert and according to Minister Ramsaran “teams visited and conducted several community meetings…all of the affected communities were visited and a team headed by Dr Maurice Edwards briefed residents and of course certain supplies were passed out,” said Minister Ramsaran.
Residents of the affected communities were furnished with Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) and they were taught how to use them.
This was done even as the Chief Medical Officer gears to create a formal Task Force which will include the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), the Local Government Ministry, the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and the Guyana Forestry Commission.
This Task Force, according to Minister Ramsaran, will also solicit the support of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association, the Guyana Forestry Producers Association and the Women’s Miners Organisation. There is also expected to be collaboration with the Ministry of Education, informed the Minister.
Recounting the genesis of the outbreak, the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud, reported that the Health Ministry has an ongoing surveillance system that routinely collects, on a weekly basis, information on all the surfacing syndromes.
And according to Dr Persaud while from the start of the year the situation was pretty much stable, it was around week six, that is, the second week of February that an increase in gastroenteritis cases was noticed.
As a result, on February 20, 2013, an evaluation was done by the Regional Health Officer, Dr Nigel Langhorne, who observed that the cases were clustered in a section of the locale of Sebai; hence teams from Georgetown were dispatched.
It was soon discovered that the outbreak was linked to the water and soon after communities closer to Port Kaituma started to report an increased number of cases also. “By week seven going into week eight there were cases reported from the wider Port Kaituma area and the cases in Sebai increased by then to more than 75 per cent of what was expected,” disclosed Dr Persaud.
Considering the period under review, the Chief Medical Officer informed that a total of 44 cases were reported from the Sebai Health post, 112 cases from the Central Port Kaituma area; and in the town about 96 cases were reported.  As at the start of this week there were reports of at least three deaths of children.
Moreover, health teams had also taken samples from wells and river sources and all of the water samples were found to be unacceptable even those taken from the solar powered well at Sebai, the Chief Medical Officer informed.  “The contamination was quite extensive…both faecal coliforms and E. Coli were present meaning there were contamination from human waste.”
The sanitary conditions in the affected communities were also assessed and together with the Environmental Unit from the Ministry of Health and the Regional Environmental Health Officer they were able to determine the state of the disposal of garbage were unacceptable.
On several occasions health officers reported that persons were observed dumping garbage into the river as a means of disposal.
Currently, there exists a location in Port Kaituma for sanitary disposal and the Region also provides some amount of support in terms of removal of garbage. “In some of these communities there was dumping and burning of garbage at the back of the yard and most of the outlined communities were found to be not so much a garbage issue but more or less the problem with disposal of human waste,” explained Dr Persaud.
He revealed that pit latrines are in close proximity to the river which based on regulations require a certain distance for placement. Moreover, there will have to be some work in terms of relocating those that are not appropriately placed, he insisted.
This state of affairs is coupled with the fact that the affected communities have a large mobile population thus the need for a constant education effort is required, said Dr Persaud.

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