GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – The Guyana Government says it is moving to eliminate lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as filaria or ‘big foot’ by 2022.

The Ministry of Public Health says over the next week, the Vector Control Services Unit will be conducting a training programme for staff of the ministry and from the Ministries of Education and Finance that would prepare participants to manage a decentralised vector control service.

It said this is in keeping with the National Plan for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis (ELF) as a public health problem by the year 2022.

An estimated 68,000 people, or nine per cent of Guyana’s population, could be infected with this debilitating disease transmitted by the culex mosquito.

An Inter-American Development Bank report noted that the insect has found the city of Georgetown and its surroundings an ideal breeding ground due to the combination of frequent flooding, low level areas, and poor drainage and sewer systems.

Minister at the Ministry of Public Health Dr Karen Cummings, speaking at the opening of the Tool for Integrated Planning and Costing (TIPAC) workshop, said that through TIPAC there is a better chance at eliminating the neglected tropical disease.

The TIPAC training exercise ends on Friday and Dr Cummings said it will allow the participants to acquire new skills, sharpen existing ones, perform better, increase productivity and eventually become better service providers.

“We are experiencing a deep sense of satisfaction and pleasure to see the Vector Control department of the Ministry of Public Health taking the lead in taking definite steps and ensuring that they build capacity through training of its participants in the proper use of the tool for integrated planning and costing TIPAC.”

TIPAC is an innovative software developed by the World Health Organization to assist countries in planning for their public health programme activities over a five year period.

The programme also helps users to accurately estimate costs and funding gaps of public health programmes so as to operationalise the plans. It can be used in conjunction with existing national strategic plans and budgets to actively plan and co-ordinate the future programmes of the Vector Control unit.

Once vital information is added, the tool has the capacity to calculate the needs for each region’s programme over the course of five years.

“Please, after learning what goes on here with the tool I will encourage you to sit down again, use this methodology to see whether there are any areas that you can sharpen whatever you did,” said Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation Country Representative D William Adu-Krow.

PAHO/WHO advisor on neglected infectious diseases, Maria De Jesus, meanwhile, told participants that a lot of work still remains to be done.