Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence yesterday reassured that her
ministry is committed to implementing programmes geared towards the
prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and other Communicable Diseases
with the budget available.
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> “It is the responsibility of the Ministry of the Public Health to ensure that we keep our population safe from diseases and we have been doing so in collaboration with other ministries and NGO’s,” Minister Lawrence said.
The minister made this statement at the launch of a Medex training
programme on Monday last. She was responding to media claims that
there might be an increase of HIV/AIDS cases in the country.
Minister Lawerence indicated that the number of persons with HIV/AIDS
in Guyana has to be confirmed by the Ministry of Public Health’s Chief
Medical Officer.
She told media operatives that while she could not provide an exact
figure, she will be attending a ‘preliminary’ meeting with the
National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) and other public officials
on Wednesday, September 5, 2018, to confirm the amount.
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> “That number has to be confirmed. Very soon we will be putting out the Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) report which has not been published for several years. I was made to understand there are changes in the way in which the reporting is done now – that the numbers are no longer collated together,” the minister said.
She explained that due to reduced public awareness there is a belief
that there may be an increase in the number of HIV/AIDS cases in
Guyana. According to the Health Minister, the Non-Governmental
Organisations and foreign-funded programmes were at the helm of
supporting this public awareness.
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> “It was the NGO’s who were the gatekeepers, some who are no longer existing or they are not working in wide areas as they previously did,” she said.
However, despite this setback, the minister guaranteed that her
ministry will continue to implement programmes to prevent and control
HIV/AIDS and other Communicable Diseases.
