Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton said yesterday that the recent death of a nine-year-old child from Kako Village, in Region Seven was due to brain damage and not meningitis as previously suspected.
Stabroek News had reported on Sunday that Minister within the Ministry of Public Health Dr Karen Cummings had confirmed a meningitis death and the hospitalisation of the brother of the child who had died. It was also incorrectly reported that the children were from Kato, Region Eight, when in fact they were from Kako.
Norton held a press conference during the midday break of the budget debate to clear the air with regard to the two children.
He said that he, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Karen Boyle and other health officials visited the Upper Mazaruni on Sunday to investigate. The nine-year-old boy had died on November 13, and his 11-year-old brother had subsequently fallen ill. That child, he said, “is literally brain dead” and is hospitalised in the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
“To have two [children] …falling ill has caused the village to become alarmed,” Norton said. He added that when children in the village came down with coughs and runny noses, the community health worker thought it was best to have all the children transported to Kamarang, where two doctors are stationed.
He said the doctors evaluated them and found that of the 39, five had elevated temperatures and most of the others had the “common cold and cough”. He stressed that none of the children had symptoms similar to the two brothers. As a result, all of the children were treated and sent back to their village.
He said the ministry could not yet clearly state the cause of the illness.
However, with regard to the two brothers, there was damage to the brain, the origin of which was still unknown. He said the symptoms though would point in the area of toxicity.
He said that tests carried out at GPH had so far not allowed for complete diagnosis. He added though that the pathologist had found malaria in the child who died. “There was also …swelling of the brain and haemorrhagic bronchopneumonia,” he said.
Among those in the team that travelled to the region, he said, were officials from the Guyana Water Inc and the Ministry of Natural Resources.
While answering questions, Norton said testing could be dealt with here from samples were taken from the sick children and had already been done. Samples have been sent abroad, he added. Boyle said the results are expected back later this week.
Asked if the village was close to any mining camp, Norton explained that it was situated in the Kako River, about half a mile from the river mouth, where it meets the Mazaruni River and where mining does occur. However, he said that even though there was mining around the Kako area, there was no reason to associate the death and sickness to mining activities.
