The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) is ac­tive­ly search­ing for sup­pli­ers of a key in­gre­di­ent to the COVID-19 test­ing process amidst a glob­al short­age but says its has cov­er for at least the next three weeks.

The reagent chem­i­cal is cru­cial to the poly­merase chain re­ac­tion (PCR) test­ing process but in­creased de­mand for the chem­i­cal, as coun­tries around the world ramp up test­ing to bat­tle COVID-19, has led to its short­age, CARPHA deputy di­rec­tor and in­fec­tious dis­ease spe­cial­ist Dr Lisa In­dar said yes­ter­day.

“The CMML (CARPHA’s Med­ical Mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry) has been im­pact­ed by glob­al short­ages of reagents. How­ev­er, our cur­rent reagent ca­pac­i­ty is we have enough me­dia to take us through the next three weeks,” In­dar said dur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

In­dar not­ed that CARPHA had placed pre-or­ders for the agents in Jan­u­ary be­fore there were any cas­es of the virus in the Caribbean. How­ev­er, the de­liv­ery of the reagent was now be­ing de­layed due to the short­age.

“It’s just the time it’s tak­ing to get to us be­cause of the short­age,” In­dar said.

Mean­while, Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dr Joy St John says it would not be wise for coun­tries to re­open bor­ders to trav­ellers from oth­er coun­tries where there are out­breaks of the virus at this stage, since this could lead to a sec­ond wave of the virus in those coun­tries.

She said epi­demi­o­log­i­cal da­ta on COVID-19 cas­es is cur­rent­ly be­ing com­piled which shows the analy­sis of the dis­tri­b­u­tion, pat­terns and de­ter­mi­nants of health and dis­ease con­di­tions in de­fined pop­u­la­tions. This da­ta, she said, is al­ready show­ing they must be very care­ful on how they ap­proach treat­ment and man­age­ment of the spread of the virus. She not­ed that a risk pro­file is al­so be­ing done on pa­tients, in­cor­po­rat­ing da­ta on their ages and health his­to­ry to help in the bat­tle to erad­i­cate the virus.

“We don’t have the full pic­ture. PA­HO (Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion) may have it. We do not just do a de­mo­graph­ic pro­file but al­so an epi­demi­o­log­i­cal pro­file be­cause we are aware that there will be sec­ond and third waves of the dis­ease,” St John said.

“Peo­ple with dis­eases, lung con­di­tions, those old­er with un­der­ly­ing con­di­tions, there are some peo­ple who will not be ex­posed but if we open our bor­ders and in­crease traf­fic from coun­tries with trans­mis­sion (then we could have a sec­ond or third wave).”

Asked whether the Caribbean was al­ready see­ing a sec­ond wave, St John said, “We are about to get in­to the slop­ing of the curve and we are on the flat part, please don’t put a sec­ond wave on top of that.”

Asked whether oth­er coun­tries out­side the Caribbean were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a sec­ond wave, she said, “A sec­ond wave on top of the first wave is not the ex­pe­ri­ence glob­al­ly. There is an epi­dem­ic curve, a peak­ing, wan­ing and then ces­sa­tion. Usu­al­ly, if there are no deaths in 14 days you are out of the first wave. Hav­ing a sec­ond wave means the mea­sures that we put to cur­tail the dis­ease in the first wave have been lift­ed.”

How­ev­er, she said most coun­tries are in­creas­ing their mea­sures and have ex­pand­ed the range of busi­ness­es that can­not open and are im­ple­ment­ing cer­tain sup­pres­sion mea­sures.

“We’re not in the sec­ond wave yet,” she added.