The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), located in Trinidad, said on Wednesday that it is implementing “instant mitigating measures” when one of its employees came back positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19).
“The Caribbean Public Health Agency wishes to advise all of its partners that one of its employees at its Port of Spain department was diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus. In order to protect the health of our committed personnel and guests to our office, we have implemented the appropriate national steps such as isolating the positive case, sanitizing workstations, and collecting, testing, and quarantining contacts,” CARPHA stated in a release.
As the regional testing laboratory, the CARPHA Medical Microbiology Laboratory now performs testing for probable COVID-19 infections for 18 of its member nations.
“The CMML presently tests all suspicious COVID-19 cases as proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) case definition provided by the WHO Global surveillance for COVID-19 due to human infectious disease with COVID-19 virus,” said CARPHA, which was formed in July 2011 by an Inter-Governmental Agreement signed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and starts operations in January 2013.
CARPHA stated that the Chief Medical Officer of Trinidad and Tobago was immediately notified and updated on the actions taken in order to take appropriate action to contain the spread of virus from contacts immedicately.
“The person with the COVID-19 virus is probably getting proper treatment, and we would want our member of staff to have a swift recovery,” CARPHA said, adding that “at this time, because all standards are met and being abided per the CARPHA Workplace Protocol for COVID-19, we can guarantee you that this incident will not impact CARPHA operations or services.”
“The CARPHA Workplace Protocol for COVID-19 will be reinforced further, and the local Ministry of Health guidelines will be properly followed.” CARPHA noted, “The agency is dedicated and accessible to serve the public health requirements of all its member nations and to give help in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
