KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

There have been no con­firmed cas­es of tu­ber­cu­lo­sis (TB) at any school, says Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

This con­fir­ma­tion fol­lowed a re­port that the par­ent of a Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School stu­dent had test­ed pos­i­tive for the in­fec­tious dis­ease re­cent­ly.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “There is no con­firmed case of TB at the school. Of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Health, as well as the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Health Unit, vis­it­ed the school yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) and spoke to school su­per­vi­sors, prin­ci­pal, teach­ing staff, PTA (Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion), and TTUTA (Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion) reps. The school has been sani­tised, and any fur­ther pro­to­cols or pro­ce­dures re­quired will be fol­lowed, as ad­vised by the MoH. What has been rec­om­mend­ed up to this time has been done.”

Ef­forts to con­tact TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin and vice pres­i­dent Adesh Dwari­ka were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, in a re­lease on Wednes­day, TTUTA said the stu­dent whose par­ent had the dis­ease was test­ed and quar­an­tined but fur­ther tests to ful­ly as­cer­tain any signs of in­fec­tion had to be done.

The re­lease al­so said it was agreed that the wear­ing of masks, hand wash­ing and sani­tis­ing pro­to­cols should be im­me­di­ate­ly im­ple­ment­ed at the school.

TTUTA al­so called on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to re­lease the funds al­lo­cat­ed to the school in or­der for them im­ple­ment the safe­ty pro­to­cols.

While no cas­es of TB have been record­ed among school-aged chil­dren for the year, the Min­istry of Health yes­ter­day con­firmed a to­tal of six re­cent COVID deaths, four of which were record­ed this month.

While the mask man­date has not been re­in­stat­ed, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh cau­tioned peo­ple to take the nec­es­sary safe­ty pre­cau­tions.

On Mon­day, the De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA)’s Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy al­so in­struct­ed all prin­ci­pals to re­ac­ti­vate their en­try pro­to­cols and sani­ti­sa­tion fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing sinks, clean­ing agents and sick bays at schools.

When Guardian Me­dia asked the min­is­ter whether the MoE will fol­low To­ba­go’s lead in reim­ple­ment­ing COVID-19 pro­to­cols and in­clude mask-wear­ing at schools in Trinidad, Gads­by-Dol­ly said the MoE nev­er stopped its fo­cus on safe­ty pro­to­cols and reg­u­lar re­minders are placed on its so­cial me­dia.

But as far as a mask man­date, she said the min­istry will take di­rec­tive from the Min­istry of Health.