From May 15th to 17th, a workshop on Risk Communication with specific reference to Avian and Pandemic Influenza was conducted in The Bahamas under the aegis of the Bahamas Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization.
The official opening of the workshop took place at the Wyndham Nassau Resort and Crystal Palace Hotel, Cable Beach. Senator the Honourable Dr. Bernard J. Nottage, Minister of Health gave the keynote address.
The workshop was attended by various government ministries and department as well as stakeholders like the various poultry agribusinesses and entities involved in avian activities. Members of the media also participated in the workshop.
Bird Flu has sensitized Caribbean governments and the regional poultry agribusinesses to possibility of an outbreak. Steps are being taken to upgrade the infrastructural capacity of the region to deal with this disease which could mutate into a pandemic.
The following article highlights the introduction of a new regional facility for Bird Flu identification.
Release
A regional centre to diagnose avian influenza is being established in Trinidad and Tobago.
Veterinary public health adviser of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) Dr Lloyd Webb said talks are underway with PAHO, the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC), the University of the West Indies and Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Health to establish the centre which would help Caribbean states rapidly responded to the dreaded H5N1 virus should it ever reach the Caribbean.
His comments came at the start of the third in a series of four meetings in the region, hosted by PAHO, to help Caribbean states devise a contingency plan to cope with a human influenza pandemic which world health experts are predicting could strike the globe as the H5N1 virus spread. The virus itself is confined to birds however there has been a few cases where the virus jumped the barrier to infect human beings. About 200 people have been infected and more than half have died. Human-to-human transmission would be the source of a human pandemic but so far there has only been one documented case of this happening.
As a contingency, Caribbean states are presently writing procedures and devising public health messages and information material to be released to the public in the event that a human pandemic breaks out – any part of the world.
“Most CARICOM countries need to strengthen their national capacities to detect and respond to early signals of a potential human pandemic. There are several actions that must be followed in order to do this and while there is no clear framework for the sequencing of action steps to be adopted, there is need to have several simultaneous and parallel activities. For example, there is need to strengthen surveillance and measures and increase stakeholders awareness and education, recognizing that stakeholders may be farmers, veterinarians, animal health assistants and other agriculturalists, health workers, industry personnel and the community itself. All hands must be brought on board.”
By: Godfrey Eneas, The Bahama Journal
