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Guyana’s Yellow Fever free status linked to laudable vaccination coverage
‘A current threat’ is how Yellow Fever has been classified by the World Health Organisation [WHO]. Yellow Fever during the past year wreaked unprecedented havoc in a number of countries including some within the Caribbean and the Americas.
Yellow Fever
According to WHO, the Aedes Aegypti mosquito- transmitted disease has been venturing back to regions in which it was previously eradicated.
Yellow Fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease which manifests with symptoms that could advance if left untreated. Severe Yellow Fever infections could result in death and, according to WHO, the vast majority of cases and deaths take place in sub-Saharan Africa where it is deemed a major public health problem occurring in epidemic patterns.
Also, the disease is endemic in 10 South American countries and in several Caribbean islands. WHO has revealed that Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and two of Guyana’s neighbouring territories, Brazil and Venezuela, are considered at greatest risk.
But despite close proximity to two countries that have been battling the disease, Guyana continues to be free of Yellow Fever. This is according to the Arboviral Diseases Focal Point Person attached to the Public Health Ministry’s Vector Control Services Unit, Dr. Cassindra Alonzo-Ash.
This, Dr. Alonzo-Ash has credited to the country’s laudable Yellow Fever vaccination coverage.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, told this publication 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.
But the Aedes Aegypti mosquito vector has become especially versatile over the years. The density and habitats of the mosquito, WHO has said, has caused it to expand both in urban and rural areas.
This essentially means that while some of these mosquitoes live and breed around homes and some in jungle areas there are those that can thrive in both habitats.
Guyana has long been battling to ward off the infiltration of Yellow Fever. In fact, on the heels of a multi-country outbreak, including the two neighbouring countries, Dr. Persaud had reported that the local Public Health Ministry went into overdrive mode to safeguard the nation.
In addition to ensuring that its coverage remained outstanding, the Ministry 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 manifest 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 publicized.
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 flavi-viruses [such as dengue haemorrhagic fever], and poisoning too.
Moreover, WHO has noted that 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.
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