UNHCR pre-manufactured housing units to boost COVID-19 quarantine and isolation capacity across the administrative regions in full operations.

Georgetown, Guyana – (August 7, 2020): Guyana is one of five countries in the Caribbean to benefit from pre-manufactured housing units from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The international organisation handed over 48 housing units to the Ministry of Public Health through the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) to boost the regional capacity of the COVID-19 response in Guyana at the end of June.

According to CDC’s Deputy Director Major Loring Benons “the   pre-manufactured units have been set up in six of the ten administrative regions where an urgent need was identified.”

Region One (Barima-Waini) benefited from eight units, Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) one, Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) four, and Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) two. Most units were set up in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) receiving eleven and twenty being set up in Region Nine (Upper Takatu-Upper Essequibo).

The remaining two will be set up in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni). But with the growing number of COVID-19 cases in Guyana, particularly in the hinterland regions, CDC Director-General Lieutenant-Colonel Kester Craig sees a need for more of these units.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig, “the pre-manufactured housing units are being managed by the Ministry’s Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC).”