By Kiana Wilburg
For 21 years, she has helped build Guyana’s HIV and AIDS response step by step and through her leadership, the country now stands as a regional leader in treatment and awareness.
During her appearance on the Starting Point Podcast, Dr. Shanti Singh reflected on her journey in the healthcare sector, sharing how being placed early on at the forefront of the nation’s fight against HIV tested her abilities and shaped her path.
It was in those formative years that she produced some of her most impactful work in capacity building and innovation.
Appointed to head the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) in 2005, Dr. Singh was, as they would say in Guyanese parlance, given a basket to fetch water. HIV was relatively new to Guyana and the rest of the world. No treatment and testing were available and resources for the health sector were scarce. To be placed in charge of Guyana’s national response programme in such circumstances was a challenge that would have swallowed most healthcare professionals, but not Dr Singh.
Dr. Singh understood early the scale of the challenge before her, having witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of AIDS on patients as far back as 1993. At the time, she served as a Government Medical Officer at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
“Many of us who worked in those days would recall that there was a ward called the AIDS ward. There were so many people who were being hospitalised because they were showing up very sick, not with HIV, but with AIDS. Those were very difficult times. There was no treatment. People were dying,” Dr. Singh recalled.
In the face of limited testing resources and a lack of financial and technical support, Dr. Singh saw not just the challenge but an opportunity for Guyana to strengthen its response and improve its standing.
“A lot of what we know now and a lot of what we have in programming, we did not have then. So, it was a really very challenging time to work in HIV, but it also allowed us to really craft or frame a programme that was unique to us,” Dr. Singh said.
According to Dr. Shanti Singh, during her time at NAPS, she and her team built a strong, data-driven programme grounded in science. This approach led to several major achievements, including the development of a comprehensive HIV testing algorithm.
“When we started in 2005, if someone had to get an HIV test, a sample had to be sent to Trinidad. We were soon able to build an algorithm. We were able to bring point of care testing and people were able to get their HIV test results in a few minutes. I think that was tremendous,” said the Public Health Specialist.
She also cited the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme, aimed at eliminating the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mothers to their babies, as another major achievement.
The success Guyana has achieved in testing, treatment and building a robust response programme also received significant support from international partners such as the World Bank, the Global Fund and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. With their support, Dr Singh said Guyana was able to access world-renowned professors from the University of Maryland, the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey and other institutions like the Centers for Disease Control.
“They really helped us to build our programme in a very structured way,” she shared.
After serving at NAPS for 12 years, it was clear that there is no statute of limitations on Dr. Singh’s determination to save lives. She transitioned to the CARICOM Secretariat in 2016, serving as a USAID consultant with the Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Programme. There, she has been sharing Guyana’s response model with the wider Caribbean region while leading HIV knowledge management initiatives.
Even in her current role, Dr. Singh remains married to Guyana’s cause. She still keeps a close watch of local trends and is always prepared to provide her expertise.
With about 10,000 people in Guyana living with HIV and approximately 449 new infections recorded by the end of 2024, Dr. Singh said the momentum to fight transmission must not wane. She insisted that the fight against HIV and AIDS must include an aggressive awareness campaign that encourages testing and treatment. She also underscored the need to address the stigma and discrimination associated with those seeking help.
If Guyana is to achieve its goal of ending AIDS by 2030, Dr. Singh said these and other initiatives will be crucial in the road ahead.