Persons with underlying conditions most at risk for coronavirus - CMO

Persons with underlying conditions most at risk for coronavirus – CMO

Mar 03, 2020 News

The novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which emerged last year in China and has since found its way into a number of other countries, has claimed thousands of lives (the majority in China).

Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud

Since defining the strain of the virus, experts have been working to decipher who is most at risk.
Speaking to this recently was Chief Medical Officer [CMO], Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, who pointed out that, “most of the deaths were among older persons with co-morbidities or underlying conditions.”
These conditions, Dr. Persaud said, can put someone at higher risk of developing complications from the coronavirus. Among these, he said, are “Things like diabetes, lung problems, some kidney conditions, underlying cardiovascular problems, other infections that may reduce the body’s ability to respond in an immunosuppressant way, some medications; smoking has been another factor that has been considered.
“All these things can reduce your chance of putting up a fight against this virus,” said the senior health official.
Taking this into consideration, Dr. Persaud said that most countries have subscribed to at least 14 days screening and quarantine period for persons suspected to have contracted the virus.
Dr. Persaud said that Ministry personnel have been finding out from persons, especially those screened, whether they have family members with any of the underlying conditions.
“We alerted them to keep themselves isolated, even though they are at home, as far as possible, observe all of the hygiene measures including washing hands frequently and if they do need to provide any additional precaution like wearing a mask or so, we stand ready to do that,” assured Dr. Persaud.
Currently, the Ministry has acquired supplies of personal protective equipment, gloves, masks, hand sanitizers and disinfectant, but, according to Dr. Persaud, “We will probably need to have more.”
The coronavirus is believed to be transmitted from person to person in much the way the cold virus spreads. It manifests with symptoms including fever, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath and cough.
Thus far, the CMO said that Guyana has not had any coughing patients but “we have the plan in place to put that immediately into effect if we do have and we have secured a lot of supplies and we are still looking at beefing up our system altogether.”
Diagnosing a person for the virus is done by way of a nasopharyngeal swab, which entails collecting a sample from the nose or the throat in order to conduct a laboratory test called Polymerase chain reaction [PCR].
Guyana, according to Dr. Persaud, has capacity to do preliminary testing for the virus and these, he said, are confirmed by labs including the Caribbean Public Health Agency in Trinidad, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, in Brazil and other countries too.
The coronavirus, Dr. Persaud insisted, is a condition that must be confirmed by a laboratory for a definitive diagnosis to be made.
Since Guyana has been on alert for the virus, a total of 53 persons were screened, there were a few suspected cases that required that samples be taken for testing from a few.
“For now, we have the capacity…We have been collecting samples and testing but no positives were detected,” said Dr. Persaud.
“We can also test for Influenza A and B which we also do, and we find that some of our cases with flu like symptoms will present with those infections.”

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