Malnutrition, severe dehydration and intestinal parasites among conditions seen at Region One outreach

Aug 23, 2021 News

The GSMSG team at the Eugene F. Correia International Airport before take-off.

Kaieteur News – Malnutrition, severe dehydration, internal parasites and bacterial infections accounted for a majority of cases seen at a recent medical outreach held in two Region One communities earlier this month.
The outreach was held by the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana (CIOG) and the US Embassy’s Civil Affairs Team in collaboration with their partners. It began on August 2 at Port Kaituma and ended on August 6 at Mabaruma.
As a result of the exercise, almost 2500 Region One residents, specifically 1234 from Port Kaituma and 1226 in Mabaruma , received free medical services in various areas such as general medicine, optometry, pediatrics, internal medicine, dentistry, obstetrics and gynaecology, COVID-19 vaccination, COVID-19 testing and HIV testing.
In a recent interview with three of the main players behind the outreach, Shameena Haniff, the General Manager of CIOG; Greg Calbert, the Director if the US Embassy’s Civil Affairs Team; and its medic Roberto Ruiz Acededo, Kaieteur News learnt that a large number of those persons who benefitted from the services provided had conditions of malnutrition and severe dehydration.
Acededo, said, “A majority of the cases that we saw had to deal more with malnutrition and severe dehydration and intestinal parasites and a large variety of bacterial infections.”
These cases, he continued, were more prominent among the Amerindian population in Region One. He said however that there were similar cases among the local populace whether it was the Guyanese locals or Venezuelan refugees living the area.

Scores of Port Kaituma residents lining up at the Port Kaituma School to receive the medical services provided.

Apart from noting these cases, Acededo related, that the medical team also conducted COVID-19 and HIV testing. From these tests, one positive COVID-19 result returned and there was also one positive HIV result.
Acededo noted too that Pharmax had also accompanied their team, which consisted of local doctors, nurses and US medical professionals to provide a large variety medication for the patients.
Some of the medication provided by Pharmax consisted of antibiotics and antiparisitics. Available too at the outreach were both doses of the Sputnik and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines and according to Acededo, persons were vaccinated.
Greg Calbert, the director of the US Embassy’s Civil Affairs Team, said that the decision to hold such a large scale medical outreach in the Region One district came as a follow-up to an education training event held in the area in March by his team and the Global Surgical and Medical Support Group (GSMSG), a US based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) .
“When we went there in March, we identified the services that were needed and we came back to Georgetown and worked with CIOG and several other organisations who all came together to provide medical support to the residents of Region One”, Calbert told Kaieteur News.
Calbert added that US Civil Affairs team has been in Guyana since 2004 and is hoping to continue with the same momentum of holding such large-scale outreaches at least two to three times per year across the country.

US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah Ann Lynch visiting Mabaruma alongside the First Lady Arya Ali during the outreach.

He explained that previously, his team did smaller outreaches in the country but this was the first one of such a large scale and he is hoping that they can pull off another one together with CIOG early next year.
According to Calbert, the team is aiming to visit the Region Seven district next.
Meanwhile, Haniff, CIOG’s General Manager related that her organisation has been collaborating with US Civil Affairs team for more than a decade now and is looking forward to continue working together to provide such services to Guyanese in the future.
Haniff also expressed gratitude to all of CIOG’s partners who assisted in making the Region One medical outreach a great success.
Among those partners were the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), the Office of the First Lady, Arya Ali, Pharmax, the National Aids Programme Secretariat (NAPS), the Guyana Police Force (GPF), the Guyana Cancer Society, GSMSG, a medical team that came from the United States (US), the Cheddi Jagan Dental Scholl, MEGATRON Guyana, the Diaspora Auxilium and all of the relevant authorities of Region One.