The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) is expected to donate four ventilators to Guyana this week to be specifically used to assist novel coronavirus (COVID-19) patients should they start experiencing critical symptoms.
More ventilators will be donated from PAHO/WHO at a later date.
This was disclosed by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) Dr. Karen Gordon-Boyle, who told Stabroek News yesterday that PAHO/WHO will be making the donation either today or tomorrow. However, she said, she is not certain of how many more ventilators the two organizations will be donating.
COVID-19 targets the lungs and can cause complications like pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Severe cases will require a ventilator to be able to deliver enough oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Without a ventilator, the patient who is experiencing critical COVID-19 symptoms, could die.
Currently there is a global shortage of ventilators and a ventilator shortage will mean some patients are denied lifesaving care.
The WHO has urged all countries to “optimize the availability” of lung ventilation equipment, which assists or replaces breathing functions for critically ill patients, pumping oxygen into the blood to keep organs functioning. “Oxygen therapy is the major treatment intervention for patients with severe Covid-19,” the organization said in an advisory.
PAHO/WHO representative Dr. William Adu-Krow told Stabroek News that there about 12 ventilators in Guyana, which includes the ones owned by private hospitals. He said the amount of ventilators that PAHO/WHO will donate will depend on decisions of the government.
He stressed that only 5% of COVID-19 patients will experience critical symptoms and so PAHO/ WHO will try to assist Guyana in acquiring ventilators for 5% of the Guyanese population.
Meanwhile, he said that while he believes that the only way to “catch up” with COVID-19 in Guyana is to test as many people as possible, there are not enough kits to do so. He says that once the Ministry makes the decision to test persons for the virus, he is certain that thousands of persons would want to be tested and that cannot be done. So for now, they are sticking to the criteria.
“There are many persons that will show no signs and they will come but this is a molecular test and we would want to test them just to satisfy our curiosity rather by going by the guideline. If it was a screening test, we would want all Guyanese to be tested,” he explained.
Guyana has thus far confirmed five cases, including one death, all linked to a single family.
