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Public Health Ministry hosts forum on Neglected Infectious Diseases
The Public Health Ministry yesterday held a joint stakeholder meeting at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre in Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, to review the existing National Action Plan for Neglected Infectious Diseases (NIDs) in Guyana.
Minister Karen Cummings
Minister within the Ministry of Public Health Dr. Karen Cummings said it is both timely and fitting that emphasis is being placed on NIDs. She indicated that research has showed that they affect about one billion of the world’s poorest people.
She emphasised the need for health authorities to take global action to reduce the debilitating impacts of the diseases.
The Minister said diseases are spreading quicker to areas than before and recent examples are the rapid transmission of Chikungunya and Zika. And when NIDs were only thought to be restricted to developing countries, she said, climate and inadequate health structure now allow the organisms and their vectors to strive, and outbreaks in developed countries are starting to occur.
She said that in 2014, Japan reported its first outbreak of Dengue and Chikungunya had spread to the United States of America.
Cummings stated that this “worrying development” strongly indicates that it might be the time to reassess the old ideas about distribution of these diseases and re-think the way public health programmes are managed.
The public health ministry, she said, has identified four strategic priority areas in which they would handle NIDs in Guyana: government ownership, coordination and partnership through re-enforcement of ownership by the institution of Guyana; NIDs control and elimination activities and capacity building of health personnel at all levels. They will also plan and advocate and resource mobilization and sustainability; integrate and link NIDs activities with other public health activities; surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of NIDs programmes.
“The Ministry of Public Health is making a bold statement to the people of Guyana that we are willing to partner with likeminded individuals and organizations to frontally approach NIDs in Guyana,” she declared, urging the participants to speak about effective solutions that can positively impact the society and reduce the impacts of NIDs on Guyanese.
She also indicated her desire that the NIDs programme would focus on the basic needs for the poorest.
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)’s Dr. Jean Seme Fils Alexandre said the entity is currently drafting a regional Neglected Infectious Diseases plan for 2016-2022, and he believes that the PAHO plan can be used to guide Guyana’s National Action Plan for NIDs control.
The PAHO plan is being drafted for control and elimination of NIDs in the Americas, he said, adding that it proposes strategies of action to reduce morbidity, disability and mortality, and address stigma as a public health programme, while addressing surveillance, management and control and elimination of the NIDs, among them is Filaria and Leishmaniasis.
He said they are enforcing the concept of countries taking an integrated approach to NIDs control and elimination.
“The NIDs and other poverty infectious diseases rank together with diseases like HIV, Malaria, and TB as the most serious globally and in the Americas. In 2005, over 46 million children in Latin American countries and in the Caribbean are living in areas at risk of infection and re-infection,” he said, noting that PAHO estimates that about 70 million persons are at risk of Chagas disease in the Americas.
Alexandre highlighted that although significant advances had been made toward controlling and eliminating NIDs in the region, goals set by PAHO have not been met.
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