A man who was quarantined in Guyana as part of measures to isolate potential novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases has managed to leave the country.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) Dr. Karen Gordon yesterday confirmed the case. Gordon told Stabroek News that the individual was detained and was unable to leave the country via the Cheddi Jagan Inter-national Airport (CJIA). However, he was later able to secure another ticket from another airline and left the country through the Eugene F Correia International Airport as his name was reportedly not flagged at that airport.
In a report yesterday, St Vincent and the Grenadines’ iWitness News identified the man as a Trinidadian national by marriage and a Nigerian by birth.
According to the report, the man was able to board a LIAT flight one day after Caribbean Airlines (CAL) flagged him and informed LIAT after he had tried to use CAL to return home, seven days into his 14-day quarantine.
“The arrival of the man at Argyle International Airport (AIA) on Saturday generated some anxiety and resulted in the domestic terminal being closed for some time and the LIAT flight grounded for hours,” the report said.
It was noted that St Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves announced on radio on Sunday that Port-of-Spain initially said that it would not allow the LIAT aircraft to land or the man to deplane.
The man was also turned away from a number of hotels in St. Vincent and the Grenadines before one decided to allow him to complete his quarantine at their facilities.
The report said Gonsalves noted that apparently CAL, which had flown the man to Guyana, had identified him “as somebody whom they will have to watch because he came in on the flight went to the Guyanese authority and he attempted to leave the night before the last (Friday night) from Guyana on CAL”.
CAL denied the man boarding and at 11:50 p.m. Friday, the Trinidadian carrier sent traffic (communication) to LIAT. “Normal traffic, not anything heightened, I understand, to indicate that they had stopped this person and he might try to get to Trinidad by LIAT,” Gonsalves said. “But LIAT didn’t see that traffic,” Gonsalves said.
He said that on Saturday morning, the man boarded a LIAT flight from Guyana to Trinidad, connecting via Barbados and St. Vincent.
“But LIAT only informed us several hours after they began work the morning in Guyana because it takes two hours to go from Guyana to Barbados. You deplane people in Barbados you take on; that’s a 20 minutes, half an hour activity. Takes half an hour to come to St. Vincent,” the Prime Minister was quoted as saying. “All the passengers, some 40-odd of them deplaned in from St. Vincent, left a few on-board-passengers not only deplaned but cleared Immigration and Customs and persons were cleared to go on to the flight and were on the plane. It’s only then we found out. That would have been certainly four and a half, five hours after LIAT began work that morning in in Guyana. Obviously that’s unacceptable,” he added.
Regional health authorities to meet
Meanwhile, Gordon yesterday reiterated that task forces have been set up in all ten regions across the country and spaces already identified as isolation areas if persons within a region begins to exhibit symptoms of the coronavirus. However, she said they have not yet set up hotlines within each region as was done in Region Four for persons to call if they begin to show symptoms of the virus. The regional health workers are expected to have a meeting today to discuss the way forward in relation to stopping the spread of the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last week declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and Guyana has so far confirmed four cases with testing for the virus done at the National Public Health Laboratory at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
It was noted by Gordon that the laboratory only has approximately 19 testing kits remaining. As was reported previously, the WHO is shipping more testing kits to Guyana. The DCMO revealed that they are awaiting the arrival of those tests in the country as she explained that testing is done through taking nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal samples from persons exhibiting symptoms of the virus.
She further told Stabroek News that they were made aware of other private entities attempting to bring in testing kits to be able to provide testing for the virus. However, those tests, she explained, would be called “rapid tests” and are not approved by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The DCMO explained that the only facility equipped to test for the coronavirus is the National Public Health Laboratory.
