Trinidad gets 110,000 rapid HIV test kits from US

(Trinidad Guardian) The US Em­bassy has do­nat­ed 110,000 rapid HIV test kits to the Min­istry of Health.

The hand­ing over by Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo to Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh took place Wednes­day at the NIPDEC Cen­tral Ware­house, Air­ways Road, Ch­aguara­mas.

 
The em­bassy says it’s part of the US Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued part­ner­ship with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to com­bat HIV and AIDS, which amounts to US$2.5 mil­lion in fund­ing for fis­cal 2019.

“The 110,000 test kits and fund­ing we hand over to­day will help en­sure every­one in Trinidad and To­ba­go knows their HIV sta­tus, in­clud­ing mi­grants,” stat­ed Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has made re­al progress to­ward reach­ing the UN­AIDS 90-90-90 tar­gets, which aim for 90 per­cent of peo­ple liv­ing with HIV to know their sta­tus, 90 per­cent of those di­ag­nosed to be on treat­ment, and 90 per­cent of those on treat­ment to achieve vi­ral sup­pres­sion.”

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has re­in­forced the min­istry’s com­mit­ment.

“The HIV and AIDS agen­da con­tin­ues to be an area of fo­cus for the Min­istry of Health due to the wider so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pact of the epi­dem­ic.”

The US Pres­i­dent’s Emer­gency Plan for AIDS Re­lief’s (PEP­FAR’s) es­tab­lished com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice or­ga­ni­za­tions will ex­pand HIV test­ing ser­vices to key pop­u­la­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go in­fect­ed and af­fect­ed by HIV, in­clud­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a mo­bile HIV test­ing unit op­er­at­ed by the Med­ical Re­search Foun­da­tion will soon be­gin out­reach to com­mu­ni­ties through­out Trinidad.