Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 05, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists
Death by disease comes easy every year in Guyana’s North West – now called the Barima-Waini Region (Region No. 1). Former Minister of Health in the People’s Progressive Party Civic administration, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, declared quite frankly and factually three years ago that “the occurrence of gastroenteritis is seasonal, with the highest incidence occurring in December, January, February and March.” He was dead right!
Zashada Bumbury, only two months old, was the first to die for the 2013 season on 15th February; seven-month-old Steve Adams was the second on 4th March. The third death was that of an unnamed twelve-month-old. All three children were from the North West.
Current Minister of Health Minister Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, by mid-March, attempted to assuage the panic and assure the public that the outbreak was “under control.” He claimed, unbelievably, that “The ministry has been on top of the issue even before it was highlighted by the media.” That claim appears to be at variance with the facts.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, explained that there are normally 20 cases of gastroenteritis in the North West per month. The cases recorded from January 2013, however, soared to 700. Evidence suggests that this year’s gastroenteritis outbreak started at Canal Bank on 20th January; it then advanced to Sebai by 3rd February and Port Kaituma by 17th February. The outbreak, clearly, was not “under control.”
The Ministry of Health misleadingly pronounced that the gastroenteritis outbreak “peaked” in the third week in February. This was not so. The numbers of those afflicted by the disease continued to rise, reaching 529 cases by the third week in March. The government suddenly declared that the situation had returned to “normal.” Reports of illness and deaths dropped off the headlines to make way for everyday crimes and the budget debate in the National Assembly. Public information on the health crisis ceased.
Persaud made it clinically clear that the source of the illness was E. coli (i.e., Escherichia coli). He suggested that the presence of high levels of the bacteria in the water used by residents might be the cause of the public health crisis. Samples of water taken from several wells and river sources all showed that they were of an “unacceptable” standard, Persaud said. “…The contamination was quite extensive. The organism identified in all of these instances is E.coli and there was contamination from human waste,” he said of the solar-powered wells at Sebai.
Death and disease caused by gastroenteritis in the North West are dreaded by the residents. The PPPC central and regional administrations, however, seem to tolerate the appalling suffering of the population as an unavoidable annual ritual.
‘Gastro 2013’ comes in the wake of earlier outbreaks. Arakaka, also in the Barima-Waini Region, experienced one which claimed seven lives in 2009. E. Coli was also identified in that outbreak. Moruca suffered a similar outbreak in 2009 when six residents died from what the Ministry of Health determined was E. coli. There had also been several deaths at Port Kaituma as well as cases of persons seeking treatment at the Mabaruma District Hospital and at health facilities at Matthew’s Ridge.
The Ministry of Health, back in April 2005, had also reported another outbreak of Acute Diarrheal Diseases (ADD). The Port Kaituma Hospital reported 13 cases in the first week; this quickly escalated to 33 then to 100 cases. Seventy percent of the victims were children under five years and almost half of those were under the age of one year.
Scores of residents – in the North West community of Tobago Hill in the Mabaruma Sub-Region – complained of suffering symptoms similar to those of tuberculosis in November 2010. Residents also sustained symptoms associated with gastroenteritis such as vomiting and diarrhea. A twelve-month-old child died the day after being rushed to the Mabaruma Public Hospital after experiencing vomiting and diarrhea.
Life could be short in the Barima-Waini Region. Located in the northwest of the country, it is the fourth largest and, potentially, one of the richest. It covers an area of 20,339 km² or about four times the size of Trinidad and Tobago. The population is among the lowest for any region – only about 25,000 people –but is made up largely of Amerindian communities – mainly Arawak, Carib and Warrau – and is scattered thinly along the rivers.
The Region’s rich alluvial soil supports crops of coffee, ground provisions (such as cassava, eddo and yam), bananas, beans, cabbage, corn, citrus fruit, plantain and peanut cultivation, and the economy is enriched by forestry and mining.
The Region should be prosperous but, owing to administrative neglect, remains one of the poorest and least developed. Its large rivers –Aruka, Barama, Barima, Kaituma, Waini – and low-lying lands are essential not only for transportation and irrigation but are also the source of drinking water. Herein lies the problem – when the water is polluted, children die. The central government and regional administration are well aware of the plight of residents of riverain communities who suffer from these annual crises, but do little to prevent these predictable recurrences.
The Barima-Waini Region is sitting on a public health time bomb. People are living in dreadful conditions and are the unwilling casualties not of force majeure, but a lack of political will to remedy their environmental and health problems. One resident of Port Kaituma pointed out wisely, “Because of this gastro outbreak, they [the government] sending doctors in here; but, if they treat the water, they don’t need to send doctors and spend so much money because no one will be sick.”
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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