Health minister attributes spike in COVID-19 deaths to ‘underlying conditions’

During August, Guyana recorded 21 deaths as a result of COVID-19 which was almost double the amount of deaths that were recorded in the country from March to July.

According to the Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, a number of those persons who died recently as a result of COVID-19 had underlying conditions and most were admitted to health facilities for those conditions then later found out that they were also positive for COVID-19.

During a press conference yesterday, the minister stated that it is unfortunate that there has been an increase in the amount of deaths that have been recorded especially at the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit. “Many of those patients who have died had co-morbidities, which is, they had varying diseases” he explained, while adding that those persons did not know they had the disease until being admitted for other issues.

“So we had a few cases like that as well and the majority of cases when we did an analysis on deaths, you would see that they are older people and many of them had varying risk factors including other diseases,” Dr Anthony noted. He added that it has been a challenge for his ministry and the hospital but however, they are continuing to care for extremely sick patients who have passed through the infectious diseases ICU and require critical care.

Dr Frank Anthony

The minister expressed the hope that with additional measures that are being put in place, including the provision of the drug remdesivir, an anti-viral medication, the increase in deaths would be curtailed. “We’re hopeful that with some of the new things that we’re putting in, such as providing treatment with remdesivir that perhaps we’ll see a decline in some of these deaths.” However, he cautioned that the drug is not a panacea, although it has been observed that in other clinical settings, patients have been responding well to the treatment.