RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Vi­rol­o­gy spe­cial­ist at the School of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Christo­pher Oura, says the re­cent cas­es of COVID-19 which could be com­mu­ni­ty spread are of great con­cern and Gov­ern­ment must move quick­ly to find out where the virus orig­i­nat­ed.

This as the Min­istry of Health on Fri­day an­nounced a third pos­i­tive case of COVID-19 which has been sent for fur­ther epi­demi­o­log­i­cal tests.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Oura said the Gov­ern­ment must move swift­ly to track and trace the ori­gin and spread of the virus.

“The key thing to do at the mo­ment is to (as quick­ly as pos­si­ble) track, trace and test, so we get an idea about how ex­ten­sive (or not) the spread is re­lat­ed to these two pos­i­tive cas­es and al­so try to find out where the virus came from,” Oura said of cas­es 139 and 141 which were be­lieved to be lo­cal spread cas­es.

“Once we know this, more in­formed de­ci­sions can be made about what to do next about the re­open­ing of school.”

He added, “It is all the more im­por­tant at this time that the gen­er­al pub­lic fol­low all the pub­lic health mea­sures rec­om­mend­ed by the Min­istry of Health.”

Mean­while, in­de­pen­dent pae­di­a­tri­cian Dr David Bratt said all schools must be in a state of readi­ness to pre­vent any trans­mis­sion of COVID-19. He said even chil­dren with chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease, asth­ma and epilep­sy can go to school once the prop­er pro­ce­dures are fol­lowed. But he said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion must use the next few weeks to en­sure all schools are equipped with the prop­er screen­ing equip­ment, sani­tis­ers and clean­ing sup­plies. He again re­it­er­at­ed the need for more test­ing, say­ing T&T had the third-low­est rate of test­ing in the Caribbean.

He added that oth­er Caribbean is­lands with few­er re­sources than T&T were able to do far more test­ing.