Over 500 children tested positive for COVID-19 since March – Health Minister

Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, has revealed that over 500 children have tested positive for COVID-19 in Guyana since Guyana recorded its first case in March 2020. Minister Anthony made this disclosure while delivering the COVID-19 update . He stated that the majority of them were found through contact tracing. He explained that children are generally asymptomatic, meaning they show no symptoms of the virus, making it harder to discover those cases. When a person tests positive, the Health Ministry usually requires everyone in the household to be tested to make sure they are not infected. This, he said, includes children who may be in the household as well.

Dr. Anthony also gave a breakdown of the discovered cases of child infections. He said that 114 children between the ages of zero and fiveyearsold tested positive for the virus; 176 between the ages of five and nineyearsold and another 247 between the ages of 10 and 14. This gives a total of 537 cases of child infections, which accounts for approximately 7.5 percent of the total number of confirmed COVID19 cases countrywide, which is 6,696. The Minister further stated that the Health Ministry has rarely had serious cases of infections among children, even in light of the number of confirmed cases. This newspaper had reported two instances where a child succumbed to the virus; one in November when an 11-year-old cancer patient whose cause of death was first ruled as cancerrelated complications but was later reclassified as a COVID-19 fatality, and a six-day-old baby who was born with complications and tested positive for the virus. Minister Anthony also revealed that children cannot be immunized with the Pfizer BioN-Tech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines slated to arrive in Guyana this year.

(Kaieteur News)