Dr. Anthony makes pitch to graduates to help fight pandemic

HEALTH MINISTER FRANK ANTHONY LAST WEEK TRIED RECRUITING
graduates of the Clinical Management of HIV programme to encourage people living with
HIV/AIDS (PLWAs) to take the COVID-19 jab.
At their graduation ceremony Friday at Duke Lodge, Kingston, in the capital city, Dr. Anthony,
urged graduates to partner with the Government to encourage PLWAs to get inoculated against
the global pandemic which has so far killed 4.8 million globally and 807 in Guyana.
So far, some 32,000 Guyanese contracted the highly contagious COVID-19 ailment first detected
in Wuhan, China towards the end of 2019. The first casualty in Guyana occurred in March 2020
when an overseas-based national on holiday here, died from the virus at the Georgetown Public
Hospital.

The health minister noted there are a number of PLWAs eligible to take a COVID-19 jab. He
stressed that despite this, there is stubborn hesitancy among key pockets of the population.
“Unfortunately, there is some kind of myth that permeates the community of HIV positive
patients. Somehow, they believe that they should not take the vaccine and that has continued. So,
I think there has been very, very low uptake with this cohort of patients and in my mind and in
all of the literature that I have seen, they are at risk,” the minister said.
He encouraged graduates to focus on how they can convince PLWAs that taking the COVID-19
vaccine is important to beating the pandemic.
COVID-19 has killed at least one local HIV/AIDS patient who was unvaccinated.
The minister encouraged graduates at last week’s ceremony to use their newly-acquired
knowledge to help improve management of HIV in Guyana.

Dr. Malika Mootoo, one of the graduates attached to the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, said she has
already started utilising the new approach and is seeing positive results.
“We have tried to incorporate that in our patient care and we have certainly seen a better
outcome just in these few months from April to now, we’ve been trying it and we’ve seen a
really good outcome,” she noted.
Dr. Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary-General, Directorate of Human and Social Development,
at the CARICOM Secretariat, is pleased that the programme was well-executed amid the
pandemic.

“Pandemic cannot and must not stop the progress if you take full advantage of the many
opportunities to enhancing public health capacity, building on the virtual platform. And that is
one of the things, we have lost a lot from Covid, but it has made us more efficient in some
ways…We must not lose opportunities in challenges, exploit them for what you can and this is
one way we have been able to do so,” Slater stressed.
The health ministry said the three-month clinical management of HIV programme commenced in
April and concluded in June.
It was executed through a collaboration between the Pan Caribbean Partnership against
HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) and USAID.