Although Region Nine has no active cases of the coronavirus disease and everyone who had direct contact with the region’s only confirmed case have tested negative, it is still under threat as persons continue to travel back and forth between Guyana and Brazil.

The region recorded its only confirmed case of COVID-19 on May 11th.

The patient, Hamlett DaSilva, escaped from the Lethem Regional Hospital a few hours after he received his positive test result but was later recaptured in Brazil, where he was institutionalised at an isolation facility, thereby leaving no confirmed cases of the respiratory disease in the region.

However, 130 persons who had direct contact with DaSilva or had contact with someone who had been in contact with him were placed in quarantine for two weeks.

The persons who were placed in quarantine include staff of the Lethem Hospital and their families along with dozens of other person from several Indigenous communities.