The Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has made around $73 million available to Guyana in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a statement on Friday, Minister of Public Health Dr Frank Anthony announced that the Government of Guyana will benefit from the sum of US$357,894 in additional financial assistance, as part of The Global Fund’s COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM).
“These funds will go toward further boosting our Ministry of Health’s ongoing COVID-19 emergency response,” Anthony said, while noting that the funds will be incorporated into the grants no later than November 12, 2020.
He also declared his gratitude to Mark Eldon-Edington, Division Head of Grant Management at The Global Fund, who communicated the decision on the approval of the funds via a letter on Friday.
The minister said that in his letter Eldon-Edington noted that the COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading across the globe and threatens to, among other things, overwhelm community and health systems, and cause significant morbidity and mortality.
According to Anthony, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to remain a global challenge for many more months and experts predict that, until a vaccine becomes available, COVID-19 will continue to be a major public health emergency across the world.
“None of us must under-estimate the serious impact of COVID-19 on the health, the social and the economic well-being of our country and our people,” he said, while reiterating the seriousness of the COVID-19 epidemic in Guyana and urging every citizen to become part of the fight against COVID-19.
He explained that since the beginning of August, the government has taken aggressive steps to remove the limitations and strengthen its response. “We have also been ensuring an aggressive laboratory testing programme, expanding contact-tracing, providing exposed persons with testing and counseling, and providing an effective hospital treatment and care programme for all critically-ill patients,” he said, while adding that it is also empowering people to utilise measures to keep safe such as urging mask-wearing in public, encouraging social distancing at all times, and discouraging public and private gatherings of crowds.
He added that since there is increased testing, the detection of more COVID-19 cases is now more efficient and, therefore, more cases are being reported on a daily basis.
“The Government is confident that, as we expand our emergency response through our own resources combined with external support, such as this additional financial assistance from The Global Fund, we will see a significant reduction of the impact of COVID-19,” he said.
Anthony also expressed appreciation to Dereck Springer, a Consultant contracted by PAHO to develop the proposal; Filippo Larrera, Guyana’s Global Fund Portfolio Manager, and all staff of the Ministry of Health.
