Fourteen persons at Warapoka, Barima-Waini (Region One) have contracted the Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony announced Friday.
The Minister of Health said the diagnoses were made by medical teams monitoring Kwebanna and nearby communities.
“We have sent in medical teams; we did some swabbing and because we did the swabbing there that’s how we were able to detect these cases. So, our medical team would be more active in that community and hopefully, we can bring whatever cases we have quickly under control,” the Minister said in his COVID-19 update on Friday.
Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony announced that infected residents of Kwebanna continue to recover noting that he is pleased with the progress there.
“We have reduced the numbers there significantly, and yesterday we had 37. I expect that to go down even further today as we do some discharges today,” he said disclosing that the Ministry’s success is as a result of strong collaboration with the village council and residents who are adhering to self-quarantine measures.
Minister Anthony said the techniques used in Region One are being implemented in St. Cuthbert’s Mission in the Demerara-Mahaica (Region Four).
“What we try to do is to have a lockdown. We work with the Village Council, we talk to the residents, we do the education on what is COVID-19, what you need to do to prevent transmission of COVID-19, and of course, we do testing on a large scale, identify those who are positive and isolate them, to prevent transmission. So those things are what we have repeated at St. Cuthbert’s Mission and hopefully we will start seeing a decline in numbers,” Dr. Anthony said.
The results from some 104 samples taken from the community on Thursday were expected be available on Friday evening, even as testing continues there.
