Continued effort needed to ward off Yellow Fever - CMO

Continued effort needed to ward off Yellow Fever – CMO

Jul 20, 2016 News

Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud.

While Guyana has not had a case of Yellow Fever in more than three decades, there is need for continued precaution to ward off the disease.
This is according to Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, who pointed out that not very long ago cases of the disease were recorded in Brazil, Guyana’s neighbour to the south.
“Yellow Fever is known to be transmitted especially in the hinterland or forested areas…there are small outbreaks noted in Brazil, Peru and Bolivia over the last couple of years. Brazil actually had two cases of persons who contracted the disease in late 2015, early 2016,” related Dr. Persaud.
Yellow Fever is a mosquito-borne disease that can be transmitted between humans or from animals to humans, mainly primates.
Currently there is an outbreak of the disease in the African continent, particularly in Angola, but with some spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Nigeria and Mali.
“These are some of the countries that are experiencing cases that started during the latter part of last year but has escalated recently,” Dr. Persaud noted.
But according to Dr. Persaud, “we (Guyana) are in a zone that is listed as high risk for yellow fever, even though we don’t have an outbreak like what’s taking place in Africa right now.”
Dr. Persaud noted that because of the outbreak, a number of countries have been imposing Yellow Fever vaccination as a pre-requisite for travelling to certain destinations.
“A number of airlines and travellers have been seeking vaccines and they have actually put enormous pressure on the available vaccine stock that we have,” said Dr. Persaud. However, the Ministry has assured that it has thus far met the increased demand.
Yellow Fever is part of the routine schedule of immunisation for children offered by the Ministry of Public Health. It is administered at one year of age to all children who are eligible.
But according to Dr. Persaud there are a few persons who are allergic to some components of the vaccine and therefore they cannot receive it.
However, over the last two decades or so, campaigns were done nationally and, according to Dr. Persaud, “many, many persons, I presume, anyone who was born after 1964, would have gotten at least one dose of the Yellow Fever vaccine.”
While there was a requirement in the past for persons to be administered the vaccine every 10 years, Dr. Persaud disclosed that the World Health Organisation (WHO) advised that one dose should be administered in a lifetime.
“If anyone has a card or evidence that they were immunised at least once, that is enough for you to be issued an international certificate vaccination of prophylaxis to allow you to travel to countries that have the requirements.”
The vector that transmits Yellow Fever is the same Aedes type mosquito that can also transmit Dengue Fever, the Zika and Chikungunya viruses.
“We have the right conditions here. If a case of Yellow Fever is to come here, it will be easy for transmission to be established. So at all cost we would really want to protect all of the countries of America, not just Guyana, from the introduction of Yellow Fever,” said Dr. Persaud.
According to WHO, Yellow Fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. The yellow in the name refers to the jaundice that affects some patients. Symptoms of the disease include: fever, headache, jaundice, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and fatigue. WHO has noted that a small portion of patients who contract the disease develop severe symptoms and approximately half of those die within seven to 10 days.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that since Yellow Fever is a risk in Guyana it is recommended that travellers who are nine months of age or older be administered the Yellow Fever vaccine.

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