Protocol for ongoing Covid monitoring in place

The Ministry of Health has measures in place for ongoing monitoring of COVID-19 cases in all regions.  

Minister Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony said if there are no recorded active Covid cases, officials have a strategy for early detection of a possible resurgence of the virus. Regional hospitals and health centres are also equipped to detect a second wave of the disease. 

Minister Anthony addressed these matters during Thursday’s COVID-19 update, in response to reports of a possible second wave in Warapoka, Barima-Waini (Region One). 

“We can have spikes in areas and then we contain it and then you have other people getting sick. It’s a constant thing where we do surveillance, we have to do testing and monitoring and no community is exempted. If we find somebody who is positive, we talk to that person to deduce from that person who are their contacts for a specific period of time, and once we identify those persons; we go and look for those persons, talk to them, try to figure out how much they have been exposed, and ask them to quarantine,” he said. 

Warapoka had reported 14 Covid cases in mid-November. This number eventually lessened, and the community had not had any positive cases for several weeks, until this week when a resident travelled to another district and tested positive there. This prompted calls for further testing of the approximately 500-strong community. 

Minister Anthony said health officials would be monitoring the situation. 

Meanwhile, over in Bartica, Cuyuni-Mazaruni (Region Seven), Dr. Anthony said cases remained stable at 80; however, since this community is a transit point, there will be ongoing monitoring. Additional measures may also be introduced when necessary. 

“Maybe another week or so, many of the cases that we’ve been monitoring at Bartica may be able to be discharged because as I said before, most of these cases are asymptomatic. So, after a 10-day period, we will be able to discharge them so you’ll see that number start coming down. But again, because Bartica has been used as a transit point for persons coming out from the mining districts, we want to ensure people coming from areas more exposed to COVID-19 do not infect others as they pass through.” 

Minister Anthony said some mechanisms would also be put in place in mining districts which the National COVID-19 Task Force determine to be at higher risks for the disease, with medical teams conducting surveillance.