The improvement of laboratory services across the country has been one of the main focuses of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), which has indicated its intention to ensure that all such services are in keeping with the standards applied by the Guyana National Bureau of Standards.
A release from the Department of Public Information (DPI), on an interview conducted with National Laboratory Coordinator at the Ministry of Public Health Laboratory Services, Joyce Whyte-Chin quoted her as saying “Clinicians rely on laboratory results to have a 100 percent accuracy of what a patient might be suffering from. Even for patients who are already on treatment, laboratory results for viral load or CD4, will give a clinician an indication of whether the patient is progressing or regressing”.
She further noted that the results from labs are utilized in research and are critical for tackling outbreaks within a country. “It will also aid in letting a doctor know how to deal with patients who are multi-drug resistant”, she added.