Despite seeing a downward trend in COVID-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony on Wednesday said Guyana will continue to take guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) in its approach to the pandemic.
Anthony made the position known during his daily COVID-19 update after being asked about United States President Joe Biden’s recent declaration that the pandemic is over in the United States.
The minister said he would not describe Biden’s declaration as accurate given that the United States is continuing to record some 400 deaths daily due to COVID-19 and he also noted that there are about 1,600 deaths being recorded on a daily basis worldwide.
Anthony adverted to the WHO’s International Health Regulations and Emergency Committee, which he said is due to meet and evaluate whether to continue to treat the virus as a public health emergency. “As of now, the status has not changed and therefore every country would have to be on alert,” he said.
Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has never been in a better position to end the COVID-19 pandemic, in what has been escribed as his most optimistic outlook yet on the years-long health crisis which has killed over six million people.
“We are not there yet. But the end is in sight,” he told reporters at a virtual press conference.
The UN agency had declared an international emergency in January 2020 and started describing COVID-19 as a pandemic three months later.
Meanwhile, Anthony yesterday emphasised that it is imperative that the nation remains cognizant of new strains of the virus and he pointed to a BA2.75 variant, which he said appears to be more evasive as the immune system finds it more difficult to detect.
At the same time, he said the strains that appear to be dominant cause milder disease, such as upper respiratory tract infections, for most people, although some persons end up with complications. Against this background, he stressed the importance of being vaccinated against the virus. “If you are not vaccinated, or boosted, your immune system would have difficult reacting to the virus,” he added.
According to Anthony, the uptake of booster shots, needed to ensure maximum protection, remains a challenge. So far, he said, 12.6 of those eligible for booster shots had received at least one dose, and just 0.6% have received a second dose. This compares with the 81.1% of people age 18 and over who have received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and the 67.6% who have received a second dose.
In addition, Anthony said that in the age 12 to 17 cohort there had been uptake of first doses by some 49% of those eligible and the uptake of second doses by some 36%. In the age 5 to 11 cohort, he said, there was uptake of a first dose by just 8.2% of the eligible children and just over half of that figure had received a second dose.
Anthony emphasized that the cooperation of parents was necessary to increase the vaccine coverage among children.
