As investigations continue into the deaths of the Berbice siblings who died a day apart from each other, health officials have sent samples to the lab for a diagnosis verification.
This is according to Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony who explained to this publication on Friday evening that contrary to an earlier preliminary assessment, the children may not have died from dengue-related complications.
“At the time when I spoke with the media, the working diagnosis is that they died from complications with dengue. But after completing the postmortem, the doctors are now thinking that it might not be dengue, it might be something else. But that something else, we’ll only know after we’ve completed some tests that we sent to the laboratory,” the Health Minister explained.
“We’ve sent samples to the lab for a verification of the diagnosis,” he added. The results are expected some time next week.
Arianna Mohabeer, 9, died on Monday while her brother, Ricardo Mohabeer, 11, died on Sunday. They resided at New Area Canefield, East Canje, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
Rihanna Persaud, the children’s mother, had explained that her son had a fever for two days, and she was treating him at home, however, he became unresponsive on Sunday, causing her to rush him to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
But her son was pronounced dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, even before her son was rushed to the hospital, her daughter was already a patient there, having been admitted on Saturday, also with a fever. The mother said the hospital was initially treating her daughter for dengue.
But the girl died on Monday.
The 30-year-old mother, who also has two other children aged 3 and 15, explained that her sister was often be at the hospital.
The sister, the mother explained, related that before the girl died, health workers had given her an injection.
“My sister say the nurse come and give her an injection and then she start to flatter and she fall and my sister grabble her and called the nurse and showed her what happening. The nurse tell her to give my daughter something sweet to drink. From since they give she the injection, the child start getting more heavy fever and falling more sick. Then at the last, they tell me that with the bacteria it cause a lung infection and so fluid in her lung and if it keep coming up it could cause difficulty breathing which could be life threatening,” the mother related.
In a statement on Thursday, the Ministry of Health said it was while preparations were being made to transfer the little girl to the Georgetown Public Hospital, the child suffered a cardiac arrest and died in the Intensive Care Unit.
The statement noted too that the boy was brought into the hospital on Sunday, with no sign of life. Nevertheless, the Ministry had committed to a full investigation into both incidents.
