A six-day-old male infant of Region Three and a thirty-one-year-old woman from Region Ten are the latest COVID-related deaths according to the Ministry of Health (MOH) bringing the death toll to 151.
The infant is the youngest COVID fatality to have been recorded so far. He will be classified as a COVID-19 ‘related’ death as he was diagnosed with aspiration pneumonitis shortly after his birth and it was only after his death that it was discovered that he was infected with the virus.
A source told Stabroek News that the mother was in labour when she was admitted to a hospital. The infant was born on November 17th and was subsequently diagnosed with aspiration pneumonitis, which is defined as acute lung injury after the inhalation of regurgitated gastric contents.
The neonate died 6 days after his birth. As is the protocol, the infant was tested for COVID-19 shortly after his death and when the result returned, it revealed that he was infected.
The parents of the child have since been isolated and tested. Up to yesterday afternoon, they were still awaiting their result. Stabroek News was told that if the parents are infected with the disease, it seems as though they are asymptomatic as they are showing no signs or symptoms of COVID-19.
An 11-year-old child who had cancer is the only other person in Guyana known to be classified as a COVID-19 related death. Although these two cases succumbed to another disease, the Ministry says they will still be included in the country’s death toll as they were both infected with COVID-19 at the time of their death. However, they are not considered COVID-19 fatalities as they did not die from the virus.
Meanwhile, Guyana recorded 38 new cases for yesterday with 23 of the cases coming from Region 6. The remaining cases are from Region 1 (3 new cases), Region 4 (4 new cases), Region 7 (6 new cases), and Region 10 with 2 new cases.
Presently, there are 3 patients in the ICU, 75 in institutional isolation, 43 in institutional quarantine and 782 in home isolation. To date there are 5,376 confirmed cases from the 29, 752 persons who were tested.
The MoH dashboard for yesterday. The death of the 31-year-old woman is not reflected in the dashboard.
