COVID-19 pandemic in French Guiana

[7] On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.

The interior of French Guiana consists of rainforests with a tiny populations of mainly tribal indigenous people and maroons.

[251] On 15 March, the following measures were announced by the President of the Republic: It is prohibited to leave the house except for essential journeys which includes: shopping for food, traveling to work, accessing healthcare, and exercising within 1 km of the household.

[252] Marc Del Grande, the Prefect of French Guiana, announced closing of borders with Suriname and Brazil, mandatory 14 day quarantine for people coming from abroad, and a curfew between 21:00 and 05:00.

The districts affected are Saint-Laurent, Kourou, Cayenne and Maripasoula[37] Groupe Bernard Hayot donated 1,300,000 masks for free to health works in Martinique, Gaudeloupe, Guiana, and Réunion[257] On 9 April, the European Union announced a grant of €8M (US$8.6M), which will be implemented by the Caribbean Public Health Agency, for the fight against the coronavirus.

[262] On 10 April, the report of the Scientific Council on the Evolution of the Coronavirus in the Overseas Territories was released, calling for strict confinement and doubling of hospital capacity.

[268] On 13 April, there were concerns about price gouging, however Gilles Klaus, Director of Carrefour Matoury, denied these allegations.

[270] On 15 April, it was reported that following the outbreak in Cécilia, several indigenous villages mainly located in Matoury and Macouria voluntarily locked down.

Officials from French Guiana's local authorities voted to set up an emergency fund of €8.7 million in the form of 0-rate loans to help businesses.

[4] On 21 April, Antoine Joly, the French ambassador to Suriname, revealed in an interview that the town of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni had been shielded off from the rest of the region, and that most of the cases have been imported.

The virus has spread to Grand-Santi, a man who worked at the Medical Center of West Guiana, came into contact with residents of the Kampong Tonka.

[279] On 24 April, the confinement was extended to villages of Mafoutou and Monfina, located about 10 km south of Grand-Santi Airport.

[284] On 28 April, Georges Patient raised the alarm in the Senate of France that the local communities in the overseas territories would suffer an enormous fall in revenue as a result of the coronavirus, and that the current provisions in the 2020 finance bill were severely inadequate.

[286] On 29 April, the local government of French Guiana voted unanimously against the reopening of schools as announced by Macron.

[291] On 7 May, Olivier Véran, Minister of Solidarity and Health, announced that workers in nursing homes (EHPADs) would receive a €1,000 to €1,500 bonus.

[297] On the other side of the border in Oiapoque, Brazil, the situation was even worse: 57 people had been infected with the virus, however the city lacked adequate medical staff, tests, and equipment which prompted a state of emergency.

[298] On 14 May, an action plan for Saint-Georges de l'Oyapock was announced which included a massive screening operation which would start in the next week, and movement between neighborhoods would be limited.

[109] On 5 July, it was announced that Prefect Patrice Latron had been appointed as the new Crisis Director in French Guiana.

As of 9 July, French Guiana was now third based on relative number of infections after Qatar (102,110[303] out of 2,688,235) and San Marino (698[304] out of 33,745).

[309][295] Mirdad Kazanji, Director of the Pasteur Institute, explained that to ensure the quality of the testing, both negative and positive samples have been sent to and received from the Central Laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname.

[310] On 23 March, the Pasteur Institute of French Guiana has initiated EPI-COVID-19, which is a study into the transmission of the coronavirus within the household.

The study is funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Pasteur Institute, and ARS Guyane.

[311][312] Source: ARS Guyane Spécial COVID-19 2020-05-07 Chronology of the number of active cases Note: No recovery data after 19 October 2020