Latest update January 7th, 2025 3:50 AM
Sustained vaccination coverage helps Guyana ward off Yellow Fever – CMO
Last year, much like many others past, saw the Health Ministry striving to control many public health challenges. The effort was quite a valiant one on many fronts especially when the challenge of Yellow Fever was taken into consideration.
According to Chief Medical Officer [CMO], Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, ever since Guyana got word about an outbreak of Yellow Fever in neighbouring Brazil, strategic measures were put in place to combat the disease.
Yellow Fever is said to be transmitted by mosquitoes belonging to the Aedes and Haemogogus species. Some of these mosquitoes live and breed around homes, others in jungle and some in both habitats.
According to the World Health Organisation [WHO], between July and mid-October 2017, there were 71 suspected Yellow Fever cases that were reported in São Paulo State, Brazil. Of these, two were confirmed and one turned out to be fatal, while six were investigated and 63 were eventually ruled out.
However, from July to early November last year, 580 epizootics [an outbreak of a disease affecting many animals of one kind at the same time] in non-human primates (NHPs) were reported in São Paulo State, with an increase in the number of cases reported from September 10, 2017. Of these, 120 were confirmed as Yellow Fever, 233 were under investigation, 74 were classified as undetermined, and 153 were ruled out.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud.
Given the situation, which prevailed in Brazil, Dr. Persaud said that the local Public Health Ministry went into overdrive mode to safeguard the nation. This included moves to closely monitor the ports of entry and all patients who presented at the various health facilities with symptoms even remotely similar to that of Yellow Fever.
Once contracted, the Yellow Fever virus incubates in the body for three to six days but according to WHO, many people do not experience symptoms. However, it has noted that when these do occur, the most common are fever, muscle pain with prominent backache, headache, loss of appetite, and nausea or vomiting. But in most cases symptoms disappear after three to four days.
A small percentage of patients, however, enter a second, more toxic phase within 24 hours of recovering from initial symptoms which manifests with high fever returns and several body systems are affected including the liver and the kidneys, according to WHO.
In this phase, people are likely to develop jaundice [yellowing of the skin and eyes, hence the name ‘yellow fever’], dark urine and abdominal pain with vomiting. Bleeding can occur from the mouth, nose, eyes or stomach and half of the patients who enter the toxic phase die within seven to 10 days, WHO has publicised.
But despite its daunting outcomes, WHO has noted that Yellow Fever is still difficult to diagnose, especially during the early stages. This is in light of the fact WHO has outlined, that the disease can be confused with severe malaria, leptospirosis, viral hepatitis [especially severe forms], other haemorrhagic fevers, infection with other flaviviruses [such as dengue haemorrhagic fever], and poisoning too.
According to WHO, blood tests [RT-PCR] can sometimes detect the virus in the early stages of the disease and in later stages of the disease, testing [with ELISA and PRNT] to identify antibodies is needed.
But Dr. Persaud is convinced that Guyana was able to ward off the disease mainly because of its several 10-year campaigns against Yellow Fever. This, he said, might have been instrumental in ensuring that there was no reported case of Yellow Fever in Guyana.
“The good thing and the blessed thing for Guyana is that we still have good Yellow Fever coverage among everybody. I would say confidently, almost everybody above the age of one, would have received a Yellow Fever vaccine and that might have protected us,” said Dr. Persaud.
He, however, assured that the Ministry even at the dawn of 2018, is continuing to monitor for the disease.
The Public Health Ministry is also continuing to pay keen attention to diseases such as Zika and Chikungunya which had in the past few years impacted the health system considerably. But sustained efforts to combat these diseases, which are also transmitted by mosquitoes, had resulted in reduced cases during the past year, Dr. Persaud informed.
“We continue to see fewer Zika cases…Actually, we saw very few positives coming down to the end of the year [2017]. Chikungunya has also decreased considerably over the past year,” said the CMO.
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