US$22M Guyana ‘One Health Project’ launched

May 31, 2025 News

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By Allyiah Allicock

Kaieteur News- The government, through the Ministry of Health, on Friday officially launched its US$22 million ‘One Health Project’, which is aimed at strengthening health resilience in Guyana.

The launch was held at the Aiden Hotel in Georgetown. The project is the first of its kind to be adopted in the Latin America/ Caribbean region, and has positioned Guyana as the second country in the world to take this approach.

The Guyana One Health Project is being financed through a US$15 million grant from the Pandemic Fund, and a US$7 million credit from the World Bank.

The objective of the project is to strengthen the country’s capacities to prevent, prepare for, and respond to health emergencies through a One Health approach.  The project also integrates human, animal, and environmental health systems.

Delivering the feature address on Friday, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, said the project which is important to the country’s health system, was instigated based on the lessons learned from the COVD-19 pandemic period in Guyana.

“There are many lessons we learned from this experience and we put all of these experiences that we had into this proposal because we don’t want to repeat of what we had to go through, it was really a harsh experience for us,” he said.

He noted too that citizens might not be aware but during that period, there were a lot of challenges the medical team and people in the government faced in terms of getting resources to safeguard the population.

“In moving forward and preparing for future pandemics, as I said, we feel that we need to have better surveillance of the animal population because zoonotic diseases can easily jump from that population into the human population,” the minister said.

“We have seen examples of this, for example with our flu, where from birds it infected cattle and people who handle the cattle can get infected or sometimes if you have contaminated milk, you can get infected. We have to be mindful because if we are not able to monitor these types of viruses, then we can have challenges,” he related.

Other than surveillance systems, the project will look at building the capacity of the national laboratory so gene-sequencing can be done. The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) was assisting Guyana with those tests during the pandemic period. According to Dr. Anthony, building this capacity would not only benefit Guyana but also the wider Caribbean Region. Additionally, the project will be focusing on enhancing workforce capacity and facilitating training of medical personnel, the minister said is another important aspect.

Providing a brief overview of the project, Technical Project Lead at the ministry, Dr. Anand Persaud said that in developing the initiative, it was realized that during the COVID-19 pandemic that there were many public health systems in terms of preparedness, prevention and response that were neglected. He said that challenge was not limited to Guyana but was seen globally.

Dr. Persaud said that the project consists of five key components which include enhancing laboratory and workforce capacity, strengthening public health surveillance, strengthening One Health coordination and capacity, monitoring and evaluation, and deals with contingency emergency response component.

The project will also “Enhance border security which is another important area. We learned during the COVID-19 pandemic that we were not able to close our borders whenever there is an outbreak and disease and now we are able to ensure we have control at these ports of entry.”

The Ministry of Health said that the One Health Project aligns with Guyana’s commitment to advancing the International Health Regulations and aims to improve key public health systems, enhance multi-sectoral coordination, and strengthen veterinary and environmental health capacities.

Meanwhile, Practice Manager for Health, Nutrition, and Population in Latin America and Caribbean at the World Bank, Ms. Tanya Dmytraczenko said, “This One Health project is the first World Bank-supported project being at the Latin America Region and only two worldwide, the other one being China.”

She acknowledged that the country succeeded in preparing the proposal in four and a half months which is well below the 12-month average given.

Noting that the project draws on the lessons learnt from the COVID pandemic, the World Bank representative shared that “The pandemic has taught us that health security cannot be left as a second thought; it can break down the whole world economy if we are not thinking ahead.”

Meanwhile, in her brief remarks, Executive Head of The Pandemic Fund, Ms. Priya Basu revealed that the Guyana One Health Project is a milestone in the country’s efforts to build and strengthen its capacity to prevent, prepare for, and respond to public health emergencies.

She shared that, “In November 2022, on the heels of the COVID pandemic, the international community came together at record speed to establish the Pandemic Fund as it is the first of its kind of multinational financing mechanism dedicated exclusively to investing in pandemic prevention, preparedness in response in low and middle income countries.”

The Executive Head added that the project engages a wide range of partners from civil society and local communities to multinational and regional institutions. “This kind of multi-partner, multinational collaboration is absolutely vital to building health systems that are resilient, inclusive, and responsive to future outbreaks.”

In noting the significance of the project, she commended the Government of Guyana and the World Bank group for their participation in the initiative, which represents a step forward in building a resilient healthcare system.

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