Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has asked for Caricom Health Ministers to meet to devise a plan to address the potential threat of the Ebola virus. Speaking at the United National Congress (UNC) Monday night meeting at Gasparillo Secondary School, she said she had written to Caricom’s secretary general, Caricom’s chair and the Prime Ministers of Antigua and Barbuda and St Kitts and Nevis about the Ebola virus, “which has the potential to harm our region and our people.”
She said: “My advice to heads of government of Caricom is to take preventative measures to ensure the safety, health and well-being of the millions of citizens of the Caribbean region, including here in T&T. “I have asked that a meeting of Ministers of Health of the Caricom be convened at the earliest opportunity so we can plan pre-emptively to deal with any threat that comes from the Ebola virus.”
She recalled that on August 8, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the spread of Ebola in west Africa was an international health emergency and that a co-ordinated response was essential to stop and reverse the spread of the virus.
“The director general of the WHO said this was the most complex outbreak in the four decades of this disease. I wrote to them (Caricom leaders), saying as Prime Minister of T&T my approach to regional matters is similar to my approach here at home: We must not wait for a crisis to act, we must act pre-emptively,” she said. Persad-Bissessar’s tenure as Caricom head ended in March.
She recalled an advisory by the Caribbean Public Health Agency saying the risk of Ebola being imported into the Caribbean was low but advising member states to prepare for potential cases and take steps to protect health care facilities, patients, health care workers and committees. According to CBS news, WHO has said the Ebola outbreak in west Africa has killed more than 1,200 people since it began in December 2013 and more than 2,200 have been infected.