The Ministry of Health will soon be reviewing and updating the protocols that are in place for persons travelling to Guyana during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health Minister Frank Anthony explained today that currently, persons travelling to Guyana are only required to have a negative PCR Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours prior to arrival.
He said that with the increase in vaccination globally and with more countries demanding to see evidence of vaccination, there is need for the review of the local protocols.
“We are currently reviewing our protocol, we have a team that is currently doing that based on people now getting vaccinated, and to see how we can do both PCR and vaccination as a requirement, so that is something that we have been working on,” the Minister explained during his daily COVI-19 update.
Dr. Anthony said that unlike some other countries, Guyana is not accepting the rapid antigen test for travellers, describing the PCR test as the ‘gold standard’
“For our purposes we are not accepting antigens here in Guyana, the reason being is that antigen testing they are not as sensitive as the PCR. PCR is somebody is positive you can know within a shorter period of time but with antigen it takes a long time, people would generally have to be symptomatic before you see a positive result or in most cases that is what we have observed,” The Minister explained.
Since the beginning of the pandemic last March, some 53 cases of the virus have been imported cases.
Further, the Minister explained that with the increase in reported cases of the Delta variant abroad, the review will also cover whether persons travelling to Guyana must be quarantined.
“At this time, however, we continue to have the same protocol, that we have instituted, and we are monitoring those protocols,” the Minister said.
As it relates to the country’s vaccination rollout, to date, 242, 991 persons received their first dose of one of the Covid-19 vaccines, which accounts for 49.9% of the adult population.
A total of 128,252 persons have received both doses of the vaccines and that accounts for 26.3% of the country’s adult population being fully vaccinated.
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