KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health (MoH) says it con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the spread of Avian In­fluen­za A (HSN1), al­so known as the bird flu virus. The virus, which now af­fects hu­mans, has raised se­ri­ous con­cerns among health of­fi­cials across the world af­ter mul­ti­ple farm­work­ers in the Unit­ed States were in­fect­ed ear­li­er this month. All of the re­port­ed cas­es have been de­scribed as mild, and each per­son is be­lieved to have con­tract­ed the ill­ness from in­fect­ed live­stock or poul­try.

Lo­cal­ly, the MoH has not re­port­ed any cas­es this year, but it did con­firm that it can test for the virus.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh for an up­date on the virus, the min­is­ter for­ward­ed this re­sponse.

“The Min­istry of Health is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the re­cent in­ter­na­tion­al cas­es of Avian In­fluen­za A (H5N1) in line with the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s guid­ance. While the WHO has to date as­sessed the risk to the gen­er­al pub­lic as low, the MOH re­mains vig­i­lant. As is cus­tom­ary with all new virus­es, the min­istry con­tin­ues to un­der­take its sur­veil­lance test­ing to de­tect any po­ten­tial cas­es and to proac­tive­ly pro­tect pub­lic health.

Fo­cal points from the Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, are in reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and there is en­hanced vig­i­lance for both an­i­mal and hu­man sur­veil­lance for clus­ters of un­usu­al ill­ness­es in poul­try, or live­stock, or in per­sons in con­tact with the above-men­tioned sources.

“As is cus­tom­ary with all new virus­es, the min­istry con­tin­ues to un­der­take its sur­veil­lance test­ing to de­tect any po­ten­tial cas­es and to proac­tive­ly pro­tect pub­lic health. The Pub­lic Health Lab­o­ra­to­ry Net­work, through its ref­er­ence lab­o­ra­to­ries, has the ca­pac­i­ty to iden­ti­fy in­fluen­za A H5 sub­types and would re­fer cas­es for fur­ther sub­typ­ing, as need­ed.”

There are no spe­cif­ic vac­cines for the virus in­fec­tion in hu­mans, ac­cord­ing to the MoH.