Guyana has recorded another COVID-19 death as well as 92 more confirmed cases as over 350 test results have been returned from the Carib-bean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), which is assisting the country in clearing its testing backlog.
The Ministry of Health on Monday announced that the latest COVID-19 fatality is a 79-year-old man from Region Nine, who died while receiving care at a medical facility. The ministry noted in a press statement that a sample was taken for testing when the man was admitted to the health facility.
The official number of COVID-19 deaths recorded to date is 47 with the addition of the newest fatality.
Meanwhile, according to the ministry’s statement, with the confirmation of 92 more persons testing positive for the virus, Guyana’s total number of positive confirmed cases now stands at 1,560. It also said that there are currently 488 persons within home isolation along with 47 persons in institutional isolation, and 16 persons currently at the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at the George-town Public Hospital. There are also 68 persons who are currently in institutional quarantine.
The ministry’s statement noted that the number of persons tested that were recorded on Monday includes a portion of tests that were sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency last Monday. As a result, it said that the total figures do not represent results from the most recent testing as on Sunday but over a longer period of time.
It noted that some 359 results out of the 500 tests that were sent have been processed thus far by the regional body.
Meanwhile, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony, in a COVID-19 update, related that the ministry has received results from CARPHA, which it has been incorporating in the results on the COVID-19 dashboard. As a result, there is expected to be a spike in the cases being recorded and numbers higher than the usual will be seen on the dashboard.
“I just want people to be alert to that don’t be too alarmed because this is the accumulation of cases over a number of days and does not represent what happened in the last 24 hours,” Dr. Anthony noted. He went on to say that while the initial arrangement that the ministry had with CARPHA was expected to be a one-time arrangement, some 138 more samples are expected to be sent to CARPHA soon. He further mentioned that the ministry is in contact with the agency to possibly send tests to them on an ongoing basis until the National Public Health Reference Laboratory is running at full capacity.
Additionally, the government has been exploring other options for sending samples to other laboratories for processing. However, he said that the cost is something that will have to be looked at before going that route. “But all of these arrangements that I’ve spoken about, this is just an interim arrangement so that once we get up and running at the National Public Health Reference Lab, these arrangements would become redundant,” Dr. Anthony added.
