Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is urg­ing more peo­ple to take the In­fluen­za vac­cine ahead of the Car­ni­val sea­son. 

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Grand Stand of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Sun­day, Deyals­ingh, who con­tract­ed bron­chi­tis last year, said the Health Min­istry was push­ing for the pub­lic to get flu shots as there had been a world­wide in­crease in res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ments. 

He ex­plained that some mem­bers of the pub­lic ques­tion the ef­fect of the shot due to the fact that many still catch the com­mon cold. How­ev­er, he ex­plained in­fluen­za is caused by a dif­fer­ent, far more po­tent vi­ral strain than the cold. 

 "We en­cour­age you to come out to be vac­ci­nat­ed to pro­tect against the harm­ful ef­fects of in­fluen­za which could lead to pneu­mo­nia, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions and death. So that is the dif­fer­ence. The com­mon cold, you can still func­tion. It's a mild res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease, where­as in­fluen­za can leave you flat out. And for those who are pre­dis­posed, it can even lead to death."

The Health Min­is­ter said there have been a few virus­es in cir­cu­la­tion re­cent­ly.

"There is an uptick in the num­ber of virus­es cir­cu­lat­ing right now. You have RSV called res­pi­ra­to­ry syn­cy­tial virus cir­cu­lat­ing. You still have COVID(-19), you have hM­PV in Chi­na, and you have in­fluen­za A, in­fluen­za B." 

He added that it is “crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant” with Car­ni­val ap­proach­ing to be vac­ci­nat­ed and be alert. 

“This par­tic­u­lar dri­ve is be­cause of Car­ni­val...with the ad­vent of Car­ni­val and the fetes and the mass and peo­ple com­ing down from North Amer­i­ca and Eng­land, the virus­es are go­ing to come with them. So I’m urg­ing the pop­u­la­tion to get vac­ci­nat­ed." 

The Health Min­is­ter al­so con­firmed that while there have been ex­ag­ger­at­ed re­ports con­cern­ing hu­man metap­neu­movirus (hM­PV) in Chi­na, lo­cal of­fi­cials are con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor that de­vel­op­ment. 

 "We are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion care­ful­ly, out of Chi­na. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there was some sec­ondary news re­ports which great­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed what was hap­pen­ing in Chi­na, say­ing there was a state of emer­gency and so on. All that is not true. Let me give you the facts about the hM­PV virus. The hM­PV virus was first iso­lat­ed in 2001, it is cir­cu­lat­ing around the world and in Trinidad and To­ba­go. So we have it here through CARPHA. We do have the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to test for it. So far, I have not heard of any lo­cal cas­es of hM­PV." 

Re­gard­ing COVID-19, Deyals­ingh said while the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has yet to la­bel it as en­dem­ic, he has not­ed that track­ing of COVID-19 cas­es has not re­ceived as much pri­or­i­ty as it once did. He, how­ev­er, said he con­tin­ues to li­aise with epi­demi­ol­o­gist Dr Av­ery Hinds con­cern­ing its im­pact in Trinidad and To­ba­go.