The government has launched an initiative to accelerate its efforts to eliminate communicable diseases.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) yesterday issued a release informing that it had launched a four-day workshop on the Communicable Disease Elimination Initiative Roadmap in Guyana in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO).
The launch took place at the ministry’s boardroom on Brickdam, Georgetown and attendees included Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony; Chief Medical Officer, Dr Narine Singh; Director Prevention Control and Elimination of Communicable Diseases Department (CDE) PAHO, Sylvain Aldighieri; PAHO Representative, Dr Luis Codina; Programme Manager of NAPS, Dr Tariq Jagnarine, and another representative from PAHO/WHO and Ministry of Health.
Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony in his address to the gathering, spoke of the importance of targeting the five neglected infections in line with PAHO’s elimination agenda, while emphasising the need for further efforts to eliminate or suppress these diseases identified as priorities.
Dr Anthony also noted that while these infectious diseases are not new to the MoH, he reminded of the necessity to adopt a different approach to target and address these diseases.
“Most of the programmes that we have operate vertically and when we operate vertically, while we can do some things in a very expeditious manner, if we are going to succeed and sustain these successes then we have to integrate them into the existing structure and this calls for a rethink on how the ministry has been doing its business. It is difficult for us to make that transformation but we have to make that transformation if we are going to achieve the results that we would like to see, therefore these vertical programs that we have, we have to find ways and means of how we are going to integrate them,” he explained.
