Twenty-seven persons in the Health and Agricultural sectors and from several regions benefitted from capacity training to improve the national and local response to emergency outbreaks.
The five-day “Train-the-Trainer workshop” was held from February 25 to March 1st and was a collaboration between the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA).
“The timeliness of this workshop, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to strengthen Regional Health Security was highlighted during opening remarks from Dr. Julian Amsterdam, Director, Standards and Technical Services, Ministry of Public Health. Dr. Amsterdam noted that countries are required to have national capacities in place to fulfil requirements of the World Health Organization International Health Regulations. Mr. Glendon Fogenay, Deputy Permanent Secretary (Finance), Ministry of Public Health, stressed the significance of developing a culture of safety as the common man using their services trusted the laboratories to have safe operations,” a MoPH press release on the workshop related.
According to the press release, participants, who hailed from Regions One through Seven, as well as Nine and Ten, were trained to handle and ship infectious materials internationally and to support local outbreak response. This was done under the leadership of Sacha Wallace-Sankarsingh, Biorisk Manager, CARPHA, who facilitated the session.
The release stated that the workshop included practical sessions on the use of laboratory safety equipment and key operational requirements that all lab facilities should have.
“Laboratories play a critical role in the detection of, and response to diseases in the population and the wider Region. Samples are routinely sent to the CARPHA laboratory based in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, for surveillance which gives information about the various diseases which are in circulation at any point in time. This is important to maintain the success of public health programmes e.g. the elimination of vaccine preventable illnesses such as measles, rubella and polio; and monitor the presence of mosquito borne diseases like dengue and zika,” it stated.
It was further noted that Joyce Whyte-Chin, National Focal Point, Laboratory Biosafety and Biosecurity and the team from the Regional Support Services Unit of the MoPH, will continue to offer support to the new trainers as they return to their institutions to train others and implement the strategies recommended for safer, more secure working environments.
