Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) Executive Director, Dr. James Hospedales, yesterday announced that the health agency has scaled up its capability to meet the increased demand for testing of Chikungunya within the Caribbean, in light of the evolving epidemic.
CARPHA, in a statement, said contrary to media reports, the agency continues to test for the Chikungunya virus. It stated further that Dr. Hospedales said that CARPHA adheres to public health surveillance principles, and once several persons with Chikungunya have had their diagnoses confirmed through laboratory testing in an area within a country then testing would only be carried out for certain groups of people based on clinical symptoms.
He said that they test based on criteria such as: newly affected areas of countries, to confirm that the virus is present and circulating in that
