Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy says Guyana is ready to play a leading regional role in the elimination of filariasis after ten years of targeting the problem and reducing the national prevalence from a record high of almost 10% of the population to about 4%.
Guyana remains one of four countries in the Americas with active transmission of W. bancrofti, the parasite that is spread by the common culex mosquito, and causes filariasis; the others are Haiti, Dominican Republic and Brazil.
The Ministry of Health along with PAWO/WHO and other supporting partners is currently hosting the 10th Regional Lymphatic Filariasis Program Managers Meeting and the 9th Regional Program Review Group Meeting from May 2 – 4 at the Princess Hotel, Providence, and Minister Ramsammy addressed the gathering yesterday.
Ramsammy acknowledged the progress Guyana’s programme has made over the past ten years and called on participants to continue their drive in achieving elimination by 2015. The meeting offers countries in the region an opportunity to assess the level of elimination of the infection and identify gaps, challenges and solutions necessary to achieve the global goal of elimination by 2020.
“Guyana is standing ready to play a leading role in this region and I believe there is nothing that could stop us in the Americas to be the first region to have eliminated the neglected diseases,” Ramsammy was quoted as saying by the Government Information Agency (GINA).
He pointed to a US$3.2 billion investment in a programme for research and monitoring of the neglected diseases which included HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria and according to GINA, he emphasized that only a small percentage of that sum was dedicated to partnership and diagnosis efforts, inclusive of prevention and treatment products.
Ramsammy also commended Haiti for its remarkable achievement in the speedy recovery and resumption of their programme months after the devastating earthquake which hit the country last year.
In a press statement on the regional meeting issued last week, Ramsammy had mentioned that the DEC-fortified salt initiative which ran from 2003 to 2007, and the CARE programmes both of which has contributed to reduction in transmission and suffering from the disease. In 2008, Guyana commenced the phase II program which is now based on door-to-door delivery of DEC and Albendazole to all at-risk populations in the affected areas. Since then, three rounds of DEC/ALB mass drug distribution was completed in Region 5, and one each in regions 6 and 2.
And in 2010, through the Georgetown Sanitation Improvement Programme, the ministry obtained funding for a five-year MDA in Region Four the most highly affected region of the country.
Meanwhile, Communicable Diseases Coordinator, PAHO, Guyana N. Ceron yesterday expressed optimism that the vision of the 2020 elimination is achievable. Ceron said the overall goal is getting the global Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) Elimination programme successfully underway, and toward the effective, efficient elimination of all neglected diseases.
