PAHO Aids Guyana Flood Recovery

In January, torrential downpours of nearly 10 times the average rainfall produced heavy flooding in Guyana's coastal areas, the most densely populated part of the country. More than 300,000 Guyanese, or more than half the population, were affected.

Moderate floods are not unusual in Guyana, but the massive and prolonged flooding in January was the worst experienced in a generation.At the peak of the crisis, more than 192,000 people in the areas of Georgetown, East Coast, East Bank and West Demerara were affected. Three weeks after the floods' peak, 92,000 people still had water in or around their homes.

For a period of six weeks, nearly 3,000 people were living in 24 schools serving as shelters. Twenty-four health centers were affected by the floods, leaving 200,000 people without access to health services. Many schools were closed for as long as eight weeks.

Livestock, pasture land and crops also were lost or damaged in the floods, creating longterm economic problems for a country that is already one of the lowest-income nations in the hemisphere.

As a member of the Task Force on Health, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) worked with Guyana's Ministry of Health on disaster response strategies. With the United Nations, PAHO issued an appeal for emergency relief funding. PAHO's country office in Georgetown set up a situation room and a syndromic surveillance system, producing daily reports and maps for the national task force's decision-making and planning. PAHO also provided training for members of Guyana's Civil Defense Commission in the use of SUMA, a PAHO-designed software program for the management and distribution of donations to the relief effort.

PAHO also developed and provided treatment guidelines for mobile health teams, and helped set up seven temporary clinics, while providing training for 115 primary care health workers. It also provided medical supplies to help the Georgetown Public Hospital care for an increased patient load.

As a result of PAHO’s surveillance activities, health workers were able to detect an outbreak of leptospirosis in its early stages and prevent its spread through mass prophylaxis with doxycycline. A bacterial disease, leptospirosis most commonly results from exposure to water contaminated with the urine of infected animals. A communication campaign initiated at the start of the flooding warned against unnecessary contact with floodwaters and decreased the number of children playing in the potentially contaminated water. But PAHO field workers still found many people wading barefoot, increasing their risk of leptospirosis infection through open wounds or cuts on their feet.

Throughout the affected areas, health workers found stagnant water contaminated by raw sewage and animal carcasses. Water levels receded slowly because of limited pumping capacity and poor maintenance of drainage channels.

Clean drinking water was a top priority. PAHO helped set up and coordinate committees addressing water, sanitation and solid waste issues, and helped monitor drinking water quality. PAHO’s country office in Guyana coordinated with its country office in Brazil to facilitate a Brazilian donation of chlorine gas to treat the water supply. PAHO also helped develop a plan to distribute water to shelters and affected villages.

With the disaster behind it, Guyana is now working with PAHO to build its capacity in areas including disease surveillance, monitoring of water quality and environmental health, disaster preparedness, health-promoting schools, food safety, and safe water and sanitation systems.