| – Minister RamsammyMeasures have been engaged to address the spread of malaria, a problem which had during the past year negatively impacted the progressive fight in this regard by the local Health Ministry.And the increase in the malaria epidemic has been attributed to the fact that many people are not taking effective medicines, said Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, who revealed that this state of affairs has resulted in the disease persisting and reoccurring in the infected.It has been observed that often times a single case becomes two cases because persons become overwhelmed with the impact of the disease even after improving for a little while. Persons who do not utilise effective medicines could pose a risk to other people around them. “This is a major problem and it can lead to death as it has done in some countries. This is not a trivial issue we are dealing with. It is a major public health problem…when medicines are not efficacious enough for use in treatment of malaria so I am urging everyone to work with us on this.”Minister Ramsammy said last month that although the local health sector has over the years engaged a valiant battle against malaria, the efforts were not yielding the desired effects. In essence, last year saw a reverse cycle in the prevalence of the vector borne disease, he said. For a number of years, he reported that there was a steady decline that saw the prevalence of malaria moving from 100,000 cases per year in the early 1990s to 48,Cheap Air Max 90 Australia,000 cases around 2003 and 11,000 cases in 2008 and 2009 respectively.The incidence of malaria last year had climbed to more than 15,000 as at the commencement of last month. “2010 has seen us moving in the opposite direction. Whilst I am not reporting the final numbers at this time I can tell you that we will have an increase for this year and the number will move from what we had in the past two years.”And while most of the cases, he said, occurred in the first half of the year, the last three months of last year were revealing a similar uphill trend in terms of the 52 epidemiological weeks of the year.Health workers, the Minister said, have done an excellent job in bringing the rate of malaria back to what was the 2008 through 2009 baseline. He noted, further, that although the incidence of malaria is observed primarily in mining communities it must not be deduced that the miners are responsible for its prevalence.“We shouldn’t make it as if the miners are causing the problem; it is also our practices,” he insisted. According to the Minister, one problem is that people are buying medicine from unauthorised sources such as the shops and not registered pharmacies.He explained that it has been discovered that some shops have been selling part of the malaria treatment and not the recommended combination thus creating a problem for infected persons.The Minister said that the Food and Drug Department has since been instructed to seize all artemisinin monotherapy (malaria drug) in the shops even if they are imported legally. “They are going to be confiscated because (their presence) puts us at danger level. Not only that it is being bought by the private sector from entities that give reports of quality testing…“What Guyana did this last six months is that we test the medicine that we import but we buy medicine from the shops and test them on site.”However, should the belief exist that Guyana does not have the requisite capability to test the drugs the drugs are also sent abroad to be tested. According to the Minister, USAID and PAHO/WHO have been working in collaboration with the Ministry in this regard.“We are able to test the efficacy of the medicines that are available in the field from both the public and the private sector.” In the past six months of the 74 specimens that were taken from the public and private sectors and submitted for testing, 14 of the artemisinin-based medicine failed the test, Minister Ramsammy said.He, as a result, asserted that people cannot simply trust the malaria medicine that they are buying in the private sector. “We know where these are coming from and the Food and Drug Analyst Department has been having meetings with the Customs Department and we are going to insist that these medicines are coming from certain sources they will be held until we test that they are fit for distribution…We are not going to allow them to go into the public even if they come with certificates passing them.” |
