By RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe says the Gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to con­front the dengue threat with sup­port from the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion.

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Pe­nal, Bo­doe said mea­sures were al­ready in place to track mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tions and that of­fi­cials were ac­tive­ly re­view­ing re­ports to guide fur­ther in­ter­ven­tion.

He al­so point­ed to plans to restart op­er­a­tions at the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal and con­firmed that work had be­gun on the promised lab­o­ra­to­ry at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

On phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Bo­doe said the Na­tion­al Drug Pro­gramme is un­der re­view. He high­light­ed a new mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing with the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia, which al­lows the coun­try to ac­cept the In­di­an phar­ma­copoeia — a move ex­pect­ed to in­crease ac­cess to more af­ford­able drugs.

He al­so an­nounced the do­na­tion of 20 dial­y­sis chairs to im­prove in-house treat­ment ca­pac­i­ty, along with two am­bu­lances to sup­port pa­tient trans­port.