With 1264 COVID cases in the last 48 hours and 200 medical staff infected, Guyana is believed to be in the grip of the Omicron surge but President Irfaan Ali yesterday urged the public not to panic but to take the necessary precautions.
Ali, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony and other senior health officials yesterday held a press conference at short notice amid concerns about Omicron which has been on a global rampage after being first detected in South Africa. Anthony told the virtual press conference that while they have been monitoring the different variants that are emerging, based on the current epidemiology, they believe that the Omicron variant is here.
According to Dr Zulfikar Bux, Director of National Emergency Medi-cal Services, the country is in what could be called an Omicron surge. “We are in a surge, the Omicron surge it is called… this is the most infectious form of the virus so far but thankfully the data has shown that it is not as deadly as the Delta variant.”
He said that what the data has shown so far is that there is a 40% decrease in the hospitalisation risk with the Omicron variant when compared to the Delta variant, however, it is just about three times more infectious than the Delta variant.
Dr Bux stated that this means that the country is in a stage where the virus is going to run through the system efficiently even as he added that the month of January may be challenging. “We don’t need to panic, we have two years of experience behind us managing COVID-19 and the experience of being exposed to this virus.”
The director went on to say that the data also shows that persons who are vaccinated and have had booster shots have a very high chance of being asymptomatic or having mild symptoms from the Omicron variant if they become infected. He then noted that being on the frontlines and seeing patients coming with Omicron, the severity is lesser.
“I’m very confident that if members of the public practice these prevention measures and take their vaccines, I’m very confident that as a country we will get through this in a very effective way,” Dr Bux said.
No confirmation
While officials have said during and even prior to this press conference that based on the current spread of the virus, the Omicron variant is present here, there has been no confirmation through gene sequencing.
President Ali stated that the epidemiological presentation currently, leads the officials to believe that Omicron is here.
“So you would know that you can do the check, the variant, to make sure it has the mutation breakdown as Omicron and then you have the epidemiological evidence that points to exactly what we are taking about, it is that evidence and the traceability evidence that is pointing to the direction that there is a strong likelihood that Omicron is here. There is enough information on the variant itself to give you a determination whether it is here,” he said.
To this end he noted that while tests are being done, the authorities cannot afford to wait and as such they are operating based on the advice that it is here and are taking a proactive approach. When asked specifically if samples have been sent for sequencing, the President stated that the process is ongoing and that it takes about two weeks for the results to be returned.
Meanwhile, Dr Anthony stated that the ministry made the conclusion based on the contagiousness, amount of cases being recorded, the types of symptoms persons are presenting, along with a low hospitalisation rate.
Another way to determine whether the variant is here, he informed, is with the PCR test which targets specific areas of the virus, one of which is called the S-gene, and if that drop-off is seen, it can be an indicator that it might be Omicron.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in a November 26, 2021 publication stated that a number of labs have indicated that for one widely used PCR test, one of the three target genes is not detected, this is called “S-gene dropout” and as such the test can be used as a marker for the variant pending confirmation through sequencing.
“…To be sure you’ll have to confirm that with genetic sequencing which we are also pursuing but in light of the epidemiological evidence and what we have seen with the S-gene drop off we are pretty sure that we have Omicron here so I don’t think that there’s much debate there,” the minister said.
Health workers affected
Among the large number of persons who have tested positive, President Ali confirmed that just around 200 healthcare workers have been affected with the Georgetown Public Hospital’s staff being most affected by this.
Giving a breakdown he stated that some 51 doctors along with 75 nurses and 41 technicians countrywide have tested positive for the virus. He mentioned that the GPH has been most impacted, with about 70% and 50% of the infected doctors and nurses respectively coming from the institution. However, the service delivery has not been affected.
According to President Ali, while most countries are moving in the direction of cutting some of the services being delivered to the public by their health sector and focusing on emergency services, Guyana is not heading in that direction.
“We are not heading in that direction because we believe that the system can manage and operate even with the challenge that we have now,” he said.
Director of Medical and Professional Services, Dr Fawcett Jeffrey, during the press conference stated that it is an unfortunate situation that some of the staff especially in two departments were quite affected by the virus. This, he said, did not create a loss of staff that would necessitate a shutdown of the departments which he noted were the Obstetrics and Paediatric departments.
While he noted that these two departments have been affected, he added that within another five to seven days most of these staffers will be back on the job.
