The Guyana Manganese Inc (GMI) miners who recently fell ill after working in tunnels at Matthews Ridge, in Region One, should have had protective gear, Occupational Health and Safety Department consultant at the Ministry of Social Protection Gwyneth King said yesterday.
King told a press conference hosted by the Public Health Ministry that a preliminary investigation found that the workers were not equipped with protective gear. It was also noted that the patients who were critical spent the most time in the tunnels and an assessment revealed that three patients spent an accumulated 84 hours without any protective gear
“If you have to do a job like that, you need to wear the respective protective gear,” King said, while explaining that the company claimed that the protective gear was held up at customs awaiting clearance.
She stated that they have to go through their reports and check the labour laws to determine whether the company would be sanctioned for the violation.
Senior Environmental Officer at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Camille Adams and health officials noted that the mining ground is still considered a “Red Zone” and “no one is allowed to enter the site.”
Asked if a decision was made on the future of the mining ground, Adams responded in the negative and explained that “we have not had the opportunity to do our assessment as yet because this has superseded all of that.”
She noted that permission was granted verbally to the company to undertake some rudimentary works in the area. She said the area was to be cleared for the construction of a workshop. However, an assessment would have to be carried out before permission is granted for the operation. “…When we get the complete assessment of the area, we will then determine what goes forward,” she said.
On March 30th, seven workers were air-dashed to the city, where they were quarantined at the GPH after experiencing flu-like symptoms, which led to the death of a colleague, a Chinese national, at the Pakera hospital.
An additional six workers were subsequently air-dashed to the city for treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), in a move health officials described as a precaution. A second miner died while receiving medical attention at the GPH.
The two workers who died, were identified as 47-year-old Zhenglong Zong and 45-year-old Zengguo Ji, both succumbed to septic shock and pneumonia.
After the two workers succumbed, the Chinese government made a request for the 10 sick Chinese nationals to be flown back home for medical attention. This request was granted and the men were flown back last week Monday. They are said to be showing signs of improvement.
Currently two workers, who fell ill over the last two days after developing a fever, have been admitted to Pakera District Hospital and they are under close observation and treatment for Hantavirus, similar to leptospirosis. Samples from them are presently being processed for shipment to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA).
Histoplasmosis
Due to uncertainty over what caused the workers’ illness, the Ministry of Public Health had ordered a series of tests to be done on the hospitalised workers.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Shamdeo Persaud yesterday said that while ministry had announced that two of the hospitalised workers tested positive for leptospirosis, additional tests done by the CARPHA in Trinidad and Tobago and the Civil Defence Commission of China (CDC-China) ruled it out.
The tests from the two agencies found that several samples tested positive for histoplasmosis, an infection caused by breathing in the spores of a fungus which is often found in bird and bat droppings.
Persaud explained that it is unclear how many persons were diagnosed with histoplasmosis, since some of the samples tested by CARPHA were also tested by the CDC-China.
“We don’t know the figure of persons with histoplasmosis. The same samples were tested by both agencies. We did not get clarifications from the Chinese. From CARPHA four of the five samples were positive and five of the seven are positive. We can’t say if more are positive and we can’t add them because it is the same samples but tested different places,” Persaud said.
Dr Genellys Camps, Internal Medicine consultant at the GPH, explained that because the patients were super infected with histoplasmosis, other diseases could be evident. “Histoplasmosis is a fungal infection that can produce a number of diseases but one of them is in the form of the lung disease,” she said while explaining that the body can reject treatment at this stage.
She went on to state that the patient who died at the GPH was one such case as his body did not respond to the treatment and as a result he developed complications of the liver and lungs.
Improved capacity
Meanwhile, Persaud announced that the Public Health Ministry will be moving to improve the capacity of staff and ensure the necessary equipment and supplies are available to better prepare the Pakera hospital to respond to future emergencies in a timely manner.
Plans are also being put in place for guidance and any additional work within these areas, identified as high risk, and the methods of precaution health workers will need to take, he said.
Persaud noted that the sick workers were transported to the GPH, the country’s tertiary medical institution, after doctors who visited to offer assistance determined that the Pakera District Hospital was not equipped to treat them. “They were unable to manage [the situation] at that point in time and the Georgetown Public Hospital team that visited determined that it would have been better to bring them out. Pakera is a district hospital… It doesn’t have the sort of medical equipment, particularly for respiratory support… we thought these persons need to be intubated and placed on a respirators…,” he added.
The patients were moved on the third day of their hospitalisation from the district hospital to the GPH.
According to Persaud, throughout the movement of the infected patients, control measures were in place. The patients were taken to the special isolation unit at the GPH and the necessary precautions were taken.
He noted that the Pakera hospital was not quarantined but access for regular patients was restricted. In that time, only persons who worked at GMI were receiving medical attention from the hospital. All other patients were asked to seek treatment at the community health centre.
