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| Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy said that work was continuing to raise the population's general life expectancy rate to 70 years by 2011. (File photo) | |
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, May 14, 2008 - Guyana is set to see the first kidney transplant done in the country next month.
Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy said the surgery will be introduced at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation on July 12 as the country expands its range of health services.
He also revealed that people living with HIV will no longer have to wait until their CD 4 count - a marker of likely disease progression, which means that it drops as the infection spreads - is reduced to 350 before getting treatment.
"This will make Guyana the first developing country to remove the restriction on placing people on treatment and therefore keep people alive longer," Minister Ramsammy said.
Additionally, he said, every child with HIV will automatically be placed on treatment.
The Minister said that work was continuing to raise the population's general life expectancy rate to 70 years by 2011.
"In the 1970s and 1980s Guyana's life expectancy was reduced to the low 60s...At the end of 2007 our life expectancy had reached 68," he said.
"It means that we have to continue to ensure that people living with HIV get treatment and live longer," he said, citing this as one of the factors affecting life expectancy.
Minister Ramsammy added that the efforts to reach the goal would also be made at the level of procurement and supply, noting that the relevant parties "have been instructed that supplies for certain diseases must never be short".
He said that in 2007 government spent GUY$1.9 billion (US$9.3 million) on acquiring medicines and supplies. The most requested and supplied drugs were anti-infectives (drugs that fight infection) followed by medicines for diabetes, hypertension, cardio vascular illnesses and HIV.
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