Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has asked for Cari­com Health Min­is­ters to meet to de­vise a plan to ad­dress the po­ten­tial threat of the Ebo­la virus.Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day night meet­ing at Gas­par­il­lo Sec­ondary School, she said she had writ­ten to Cari­com's sec­re­tary gen­er­al, Cari­com's chair and the Prime Min­is­ters of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and St Kitts and Nevis about the Ebo­la virus, "which has the po­ten­tial to harm our re­gion and our peo­ple."

She said: "My ad­vice to heads of gov­ern­ment of Cari­com is to take pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures to en­sure the safe­ty, health and well-be­ing of the mil­lions of cit­i­zens of the Caribbean re­gion, in­clud­ing here in T&T."I have asked that a meet­ing of Min­is­ters of Health of the Cari­com be con­vened at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty so we can plan pre-emp­tive­ly to deal with any threat that comes from the Ebo­la virus."

She re­called that on Au­gust 8, the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) said the spread of Ebo­la in west Africa was an in­ter­na­tion­al health emer­gency and that a co-or­di­nat­ed re­sponse was es­sen­tial to stop and re­verse the spread of the virus.

"The di­rec­tor gen­er­al of the WHO said this was the most com­plex out­break in the four decades of this dis­ease. I wrote to them (Cari­com lead­ers), say­ing as Prime Min­is­ter of T&T my ap­proach to re­gion­al mat­ters is sim­i­lar to my ap­proach here at home: We must not wait for a cri­sis to act, we must act pre-emp­tive­ly," she said.Per­sad-Bisses­sar's tenure as Cari­com head end­ed in March.

She re­called an ad­vi­so­ry by the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency say­ing the risk of Ebo­la be­ing im­port­ed in­to the Caribbean was low but ad­vis­ing mem­ber states to pre­pare for po­ten­tial cas­es and take steps to pro­tect health care fa­cil­i­ties, pa­tients, health care work­ers and com­mit­tees.Ac­cord­ing to CBS news, WHO has said the Ebo­la out­break in west Africa has killed more than 1,200 peo­ple since it be­gan in De­cem­ber 2013 and more than 2,200 have been in­fect­ed.