KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health (MoH) is seek­ing to quell con­cerns about a resur­gence of COVID-19 in Trinidad and To­ba­go, say­ing there has been no sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in cas­es or hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions.

How­ev­er, four pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es were record­ed last month, af­ter the Trinidad Pub­lic Health Lab­o­ra­to­ry (TPHL) re­port­ed no pos­i­tive cas­es from May through Ju­ly.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the MoH said the four pos­i­tive re­sults came from 731 sam­ples processed up to Au­gust.

The Min­istry stat­ed, “Based on our most re­cent lab­o­ra­to­ry da­ta up to Au­gust 2026, we are not see­ing a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in COVID-19 cas­es or hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions.”

The up­date comes as Bar­ba­dos re­ports an in­crease in res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es, in­clud­ing COVID-19 and in­fluen­za.

The Bar­ba­dos As­so­ci­a­tion of Med­ical Prac­ti­tion­ers has urged the pub­lic to take pre­cau­tions fol­low­ing an ad­vi­so­ry from that coun­try’s Min­istry of Health and Well­ness about a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es.

With schools re­open­ing, med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers in Bar­ba­dos have al­so urged par­ents to keep sick chil­dren away from schools and day­care cen­tres to help re­duce trans­mis­sion.

How­ev­er, the MoH said the sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go was dif­fer­ent, with lo­cal sur­veil­lance show­ing an ex­pect­ed sea­son­al in­crease in oth­er res­pi­ra­to­ry virus­es rather than a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in COVID-19.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, In­fluen­za A, in­clud­ing the H1N1 and H3N2 sub­types, as well as In­fluen­za B, ac­counts for the ma­jor­i­ty of pos­i­tive res­pi­ra­to­ry find­ings.

These ill­ness­es al­so share symp­toms with COVID-19, which the Min­istry said may ex­plain pub­lic per­cep­tions of an in­crease in COVID-19 cas­es.

While dis­miss­ing con­cerns of a COVID-19 surge, the MoH ac­knowl­edged that the rel­a­tive­ly low num­ber of con­firmed cas­es could be due to in­fec­tions go­ing un­de­tect­ed or un­re­port­ed.

It said, how­ev­er, that its sur­veil­lance sys­tem cov­ers all re­gions of Trinidad and To­ba­go, with sam­ples sub­mit­ted from ma­jor hos­pi­tals across both is­lands.

The Min­istry added, “This means we are con­fi­dent in the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of our da­ta and are not see­ing ev­i­dence of wide­spread un­der-re­port­ing.”

The MoH said it con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and is con­duct­ing ac­tive ge­nom­ic sur­veil­lance with the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) for any new COVID-19 vari­ants.

It said the pub­lic would be in­formed prompt­ly if there were any sig­nif­i­cant changes.

For now, the Min­istry is ad­vis­ing peo­ple to con­tin­ue prac­tis­ing good res­pi­ra­to­ry hy­giene and seek med­ical at­ten­tion if they ex­pe­ri­ence se­vere symp­toms.

It is al­so en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to get vac­ci­nat­ed against in­fluen­za.