| Efforts underway to increase Guyana’s life expectancy rate by 2011 |
| SC Admin |
05/14/2008
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Health & Medical
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Every child with HIV placed on treatment
Georgetown, GINA, May 14, 208 -- Guyana has turned a corner and the country’s life expectancy rate has
begun to increase and work is being done to raise the population’s 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 has
reached 68,” Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy said during the
recent commissioning of the Intensive Care Unit at the New Amsterdam
Public Hospital.
“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.
The Health Minister has instructed that people living with HIV no
longer have to wait until their CD 4 count is reduced to 350 to get
treatment.Treatment will be started earlier.
“This will make Guyana the first developing country to remove the
restriction on placing people on treatment and therefore, keep people
alive longer and so have a chance of increasing our life expectancy,”
Minister Ramsammy said.
Additionally, every child with HIV will automatically be placed on treatment.
Efforts to increase the life expectancy rate will also be
made in the procurement and supply service. “The supply chain people
have been instructed that supplies for certain diseases must never be
short,” said the Health Minister.
He said in 2007 government spent $1.9B on acquiring
medicines and supplies. The most requested and supplied drugs were
anti-infectives (drugs that fight infection) and amoxicillin was the
number one medicine supplied. “Last year almost $90B was spent on the
procurement of amoxicillin,” Minister Ramsammy said.
After anti-infectives, the next most frequently supplied
medicines were those for diabetes, hypertension, cardio vascular
illnesses and HIV.
Minister Ramsammy said Region Six along and other regions
have to play their role in improving the indicators for increased life
expectancy rates and ensuring health for all.
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