PAHO gives more kits for COVID fight

The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) has boosted Barbados’ COVID-19 testing capabilities with a donation of 11,000 testing kits.

Accepting the kits and 782 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) packages from PAHO/WHO Representative for Barbados and Eastern Caribbean Dr Yitades Gebre, Minister of Health and Wellness Col Lt Jeffrey Bostic said the donation is timely for use in the country’s island-wide testing programme scheduled to begin soon.

Speaking during the handing over ceremony at PAHO’s Dayrells Road, Christ Church headquarters this afternoon, Bostic revealed that health authorities were now in possession of 38 000 testing kits and noted that that number is expected to be increased soon.

“We are on top of it in containing it and we need to really expand our testing. This is exactly what we are going to be doing in a day or two. We are going to be expanding the testing and establishing testing centres so that we can get back to as normal a state as early as possible without compromising public health,” Bostic said.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George who also attended the ceremony, stated that while recovered COVID-19 patients are being released and there has been no evidence of re-infection, the authorities are monitoring this particular aspect of the pandemic closely since it has been happening in other countries.

“It is something that we will continue to monitor. As the Minister said we have been given a mandate from the Prime Minister [Mia Amor Mottley] to scale up our testing. Today is day six without any new cases and the Ministry of Health has always had the approach to be extremely transparent.

“And we would like to make sure that there is no in-country transmission and the only way we are going to do that with some confidence is if we scale up our testing.

“So what we have told general practitioners in Barbados is that persons even without a travel history presenting with respiratory illness we are willing to test. We have placed special emphasis on frontline workers and particularly the elderly,” Dr George said.

Minister Bostic thanked PAHO for its assistance in the COVID-19 fight. He said Barbados has been following PAHO and WHO’s guidelines and protocols to contain the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, Dr Gebre praised Barbados’ handling of the pandemic and noted that many countries could benefit from copying the model. He said PAHO is pleased to continue to provide the country with technical and administrative support to ensure that lives are saved and the negative impact on society is kept at a minimum.

Dr Gebre said it was encouraging to note that most countries in the region were managing the pandemic well, with there being no signs of community spread and some nations reporting no COVID-19 related deaths.

“No country at this point has shown that they are overwhelmed with the number of cases. All of them are doing extremely well in terms of containing. There is no community transmission in the Caribbean,” Dr Gebre said.

When asked whether the United States of America’s (USA) threat to halt its funding to the WHO over the organisation’s handling of COVID-19, Dr Gebre said that the US was committed to helping WHO’s work in developing countries in need of the assistance during the pandemic.

“During this pandemic the United States government has provided resources to support other countries. In our region, USAID provided $100 000 for Barbados and then for each of those countries in the range of $60 000 to $70 000 for the next three months.

So we have received half a million dollars from the United States government in our region to provide technical support. Continuously that kind of support is needed,” Dr Gebre said.
anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb