Cases of COVID-19 reinfection have not been rigidly documented in Guyana as is done in a number of other countries says Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony.
The health minister made these remarks during Tuesday’s COVID-19 update where he stated that reinfection with the virus is possible but according to recent data it shows that persons can become re-infected with a different strain of the virus if they were infected.
“Re-infection is possible and what they have said in the scientific literature is that if you were infected with one strain you can get infected with another,” the minister said, adding that there have been “rigidly documented” cases of that in other countries but the authorities here have not been able to do so.
Giving reason as to why this has not been done in Guyana, Dr Anthony stated, “We have not been able to rigidly document such cases in Guyana because it requires very detailed scientific analysis in the first instance and then to check again with the reinfection.”
Further he noted that they know of persons who were tested positive before and came down with symptoms of the virus months later and after being retested they were shown to be positive again. In the medical community, he said, they have identified some of those cases, however, nothing was done with them. “The scientific rigour in terms of checking all the different parameters and so forth, I don’t think that was done. So these, our cases that we have identified, we have not really published them or done anything with them.” Anthony noted.
In late November, head of the COVID-19 task force at the Georgetown Public Hospital, Dr Mahendra Carpen, had told Stabroek News that they had reported two cases of reinfection of COVID-19. At that time Dr Carpen had stated that while reinfection was possible, it was extremely rare. During that interview the head of the task force stated that it was too early to know whether the virus would behave like the annual seasonal flu.
