Eight COVID-19 patients recover; test negative
DPI, Guyana, Monday, April 6, 2020
Eight persons who tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have recovered after a period of isolation and medical treatment.
This good news was announced by Public Health Minister, Hon. Volda Lawrence on Monday, during her daily update to the nation on the COVID-19 situation in Guyana.
The Minister disclosed that these persons were linked to Guyana’s first COVID-19 case – a 52-year-old woman who had travelled to Guyana.
She further revealed that among the eight, “three family members of the index case who tested positive had two post isolation tests; both tests for each of the three family members are negative.”
Shortly after the first case had tested positive, close family members of the now-deceased individual had also registered positive results after testing. Since then they were placed in institutional isolation and monitored by the Ministry of Public Health.
Meanwhile, contact tracing was done to locate the other persons who had interacted with the individual and her family members.
In a previous briefing, Minister Lawrence detailed how the process to recover from the virus works.
“For those persons in isolation (testing positive) they will be held for 14 days after which if no new symptoms develop within in 3 days prior to the 15th day, they will be tested twice in 24 hours. If negative they will be cleared but those with positive results will remain in further isolation.”
The news of these recoveries gives hope for others who have tested positive.
Note: Contact tracing is the process of identifying persons who may have come into contact with an infected person (“contacts”) and subsequent collection of further information about these contacts. By tracing the contacts of infected individuals, testing them for infection, treating the infected and tracing their contacts in turn, public health official aim to reduce infections in the population.