Health Ministry takes Chikungunya awareness drive to Region Three

Jun 28, 2014 News

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— as plans made to train local personnel to test for virus

Even as Guyana seeks to build capacity to test for the Chikungunya virus here, sustained moves are being made to sensitise the population about the impact of the mosquito borne virus.
Although reports coming out of the Ministry suggest that the virus has to date only been confirmed in sections of East Berbice, there have been concerns surfacing, some of which have been appeased by the ongoing awareness drive.

As part of these efforts, a sensitisation forum venued at the West Demerara Regional Hospital’s Nurses Hostel yesterday saw Regional Vector Control Coordinator, Mr Keith Moore, effectively allaying concerns surrounding the virus.
The forum was organised by the Region Three Health and Wellness Club, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health’s Vector Control Services Unit, to which Moore is attached.
In his sensitisation quest, Moore sought to inform the gathering yesterday, most of whom are attached to the Health and Wellness Club, of the characteristics of the virus which has been causing much alarm in sections of the Caribbean of recent. And it is particularly crucial to raise awareness about the virus, Moore noted, since “people may have the Chikungunya virus and want to think that it is dengue; so we have to make them aware of what to look for…”
Moreover, the Vector Control Officer was yesterday on a mission to outline the difference between the Chikungunya virus and dengue fever.” He also went on to explain the process of treatment for the virus, pointing out that treatment is readily available at public health facilities at no cost to persons who are or may become infected with the virus, which like dengue fever is transmitted by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito.
He noted that while the nation must be on alert about the virus, which unlike dengue has the potentially lasting effect of unnaturally curving the joints, care must also be taken to protect young children, the elderly and persons with pre-conditions.
Some of the signs and symptoms of the virus are high fever, joint and muscle pains, headache, nausea and skin rash all of which are being closely monitored by the health sector.
Although dengue is manifested by some of the similar symptoms, there isn’t a lasting effect or debilitating impact, Moore outlined.
He asserted that “the prognosis in general is good; people will get Chikungunya, they will take tablets to treat their symptoms and they will get better…you wouldn’t get it again ever because you would have acquired immunity.”
Moreover, Moore has cautioned that “people shouldn’t be running scared…What we are trying to do is contain it and if we can keep it where it is and, at the same time sensitise the rest of the population, we will be in a good place.”
The fight against the virus, he said, is not merely dependent on the efforts of the Health Ministry but “people have to do things for themselves too…they have to make certain water is not opened around the place where the mosquitoes can breed and they have to keep their environments clean.”
In addition to sensitisation, the Ministry has been engaged in intense vector control activities including regular fogging, mainly in the sections of Berbice, where the virus has been confirmed, and Georgetown.
And according to Moore the Ministry has only been utilising insecticides approved by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO).
In addition to PAHO, Minister of Health Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, during an interview, disclosed that the Health Ministry has been working in close collaboration with a number of agencies, including the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development.  “We will continue to do what we started to do several months ago. When we were alerted that Chikungunya was in the Caribbean we knew that sooner or later it would be in Guyana and we started to take certain measures; urging that the city be cleaned and having the Minister of Local Government, (Norman Whittaker) scale up and push faster the half a billion dollar clean-up of the city,” related the Health Minister.
Such efforts were seen as imperative the Minister said since “we do not want cases in the city because of its crowded nature; so we must be vigilant and we are urging citizens to keep clean their immediate surroundings.”
Thus far, there have been 19 cases of the virus that have been confirmed by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) in Trinidad. And the Minister has affirmed that two of the persons listed among the confirmed cases have residential addresses in the city. He insisted that these persons, based on investigations by his Ministry, would have had interactions in the Berbice area which may have resulted in them contracting the virus.
Meanwhile, Minister Ramsaran disclosed that the Health Ministry is poised to take advantage of an upcoming Pan American Health Organisation/Centres for Disease Control (PAHO/CDC) collaboration, which is expected to see at least one local health worker travelling to Atlanta, Georgia in the United States for training. “We had deliberately, knowing that training was coming up, asked the authorities (PAHO and CDC) to extend that person’s stay to possibly get training to test for Chikungunya…so we are awaiting a reply; that will be our best option,” intimated the Health Minister.
He had previously disclosed that while Guyana has the equipment to test for the virus at the National Reference Laboratory situated at the junction of Thomas and New Market Streets, Georgetown, qualified personnel to undertake the testing process are lacking.

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