Ten persons who tested positive for COVID-19 in Region 10 have recovered from the disease.
The region recorded eleven cases, including one death. The Region’s COVID Coordinator Dr Micheal Marks said 126 persons were tested from the region as the health department continues an aggressive approach to safeguarding residents from the dreaded disease.
Dr Marks stressed that stakeholders continue to play a pivotal role in what he dubbed as the region’s continued efforts in maintaining low numbers.
“As a region, we continue to do what is expected of us and that is why we operate with zeal and sincerity because for us our objective is to ensure that we do not record any additional cases and more so record any other death so we will continue doing this part,” he declared.
Head of the Regional Health Emergency Committee (RHEC) Orrin Gordon told the Committee that they have been vindicated as Region Ten is the only locale that deliberately and actively conducts tests on all returning persons to the region.
“The records show that we are the only place which insists and tries to test persons that are returning to the region and through those tests, we were able to identify a positive case and while we have been urging the NTF to institutionalize it, we are not sure if they will do so but what I can say is that Region Ten will continue to make efforts to test,” he assured.
Gordon said they have been aggressively monitoring Linden, Kwakwani, Ituni and several other communities within Region Ten including 47, 58, Mabura and Rockstone.
The RHEC Head pointed out that the regional authorities are also ensuring that “persons coming into the region from overseas are tested, thus ensuring they are indeed safe and free of the disease.”
He said the National Task Force and other regions may not see the need to test persons returning to their regions from abroad, Region Ten has made it mandatory.
He said so far the returnees have been very compliant and responsible as they are engaged on the importance of such testing.
“It’s evident that because of the National Task Force policy of seven days home quarantine that persons will not be too keen on being tested but we have been meeting and discussing with them the reasons for such actions and they have been consenting to be tested,” Dr Marks said.
He added, “We tested several persons who were in Suriname and 18 out of 20 persons who had returned from the cruise ship abroad and these tests were done incident-free as persons understand and actually agreed with our reasons for testing and are making themselves available.”
The RHEC has noted that while at one stage they had the third-highest number of cases for regions in Guyana the situation has changed somewhat over the ensuing period.
(Extracted and modified from press statement)
