Ongoing collaboration between Govt, CARPHA on variant testing

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, MP, says testing for COVID-19 variants in Guyana is ongoing with the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), even as the Government explores other avenues.

The Minister made the disclosure during Wednesday’s COVID-19 update.

“We initially had some tests that were done by CARPHA. The first set that we had sent, of the 10 samples that went out, we really didn’t see any variants. However, we saw, in subsequent reports, that they have found variants here and as you will recall, we were trying to find that out because we did not get an official report.

We will continue to work with CARPHA to see if we can get more testing done to understand what variants are circulating here. And we’ll try to find from other institutions who have the ability to sequence the Sars COV genome, to see whether or not we can get other people to look at it,” he said.

Dr. Anthony noted that the Government may also utilise the Pan America Health Organization’s network of laboratories in Latin America for testing.

“We can work with them to see how we can improve gene sequencing. But having said all of that, the thing here is that our public health management would not vary much in the sense that people would have to still abide by the rules that we have, and that is social distancing, wearing a mask.

You will still have to continue those. And of course, observing these things because I think people have gotten very complacent.”

Minister Anthony reiterated that the best way to protect one’s self against COVID-19 is to become fully vaccinated. He urged persons to take what he has described as the “common-sense approach” to ride out this third wave of the pandemic.