Health Minister reminds Guyanese of long-term COVID-19 effects

Sep 05, 2021 News

– says unit being set up to treat patients with prolonged ailments

Kaieteur News – Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, has reminded Guyanese of the prolonged effects COVID-19 can have on the body.

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony

As such, during his COVID-19 Update on Thursday, Dr. Anthony announced that the first of several facilities is being established at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) to treat persons who have recovered from the COVID-19 virus, but who are suffering from long-term ailments caused by the infection.
Dr. Anthony said, “We are now in the process of organising a multidisciplinary team to provide care for long COVID-19 patients, so this is not just one specialty, it’s not just like cardiac… this is going to be a multidisciplinary team.”
He noted that post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection or long COVID, as it is commonly called, describes the effects of COVID-19 which persist for weeks or sometimes months after a person was initially infected with the disease.
According to the Minister, lasting symptoms of the disease include fatigue, breathlessness, brain fog (lack of focus), chest pains, joint or muscle pains, palpitations, anxiety or depression.
Dr. Anthony said the Health Ministry has been observing patients who have recovered from COVID-19 but are now experiencing prolonged symptoms. He said the multidisciplinary team is important as the Coronavirus in many cases, attacks multiple organs at a time.
“Therefore, you need this multidisciplinary team to assist in the management of some of these patients. So, we’re in the process of setting up that unit to be based at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and we will then be able to replicate that to some of our other hospitals depending on the patient load that we’ll see,” Minister Anthony added.
The Health Minister pointed to a report by Britain’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) that showed ongoing illness after infection with COVID-19. Similarly, a study by Oxford University showed that two to three months after the onset of COVID-19, 64 percent of patients suffered persistent breathlessness and 55 percent suffered from significant fatigue. MRI scans also showed abnormalities in the lungs, kidneys, heart and liver.
Meanwhile, to date, 316,973 persons or 61.8 percent of Guyana’s adult population have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. A total of 165,401 persons or 32.2 percent of the country’s adult population have received both doses of the vaccine. In addition, some 4,362 adolescents have received their first jab of the Pfizer vaccine, since Government rolled out its programme last week.

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