The Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment has do­nat­ed dengue and oth­er ar­bovirus test kits, which in­clude Zi­ka and Chikun­gun­ya virus to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA).

It said that the kits will aid CARPHA in its re­sponse to the in­creas­ing num­ber of dengue cas­es in the Caribbean.

“This do­na­tion will help pro­tect the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple across the Caribbean and is a tes­ta­ment to the Unit­ed States’ on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with re­gion­al pub­lic health stake­hold­ers,” said US Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Can­dace Bond.

“As dengue cas­es in­crease across the re­gion, it is cru­cial to adopt per­son­al pro­tec­tive mea­sures and in­vest in health pro­mo­tion and dis­ease pre­ven­tion ac­tiv­i­ties to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions from con­tract­ing the dis­ease,” the diplo­mat added.

Wash­ing­ton said that com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment is vi­tal to en­hanc­ing the ef­fec­tive­ness of vec­tor con­trol ef­forts, help­ing to re­duce mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tions that trans­mit the dis­ease.

“Through ac­tions such as elim­i­nat­ing breed­ing sites, par­tic­i­pat­ing in clean-up ini­tia­tives, and spread­ing aware­ness about pre­ven­tion meth­ods, com­mu­ni­ties can sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tribute to con­trol­ling the spread of dengue and pro­tect­ing pub­lic health, es­pe­cial­ly for the most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, in­clud­ing the young, el­der­ly, preg­nant women, and the im­muno­com­pro­mised,” it added.

Sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries have re­port­ed an out­break of dengue with some al­so record­ing deaths linked to the virus.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Aug 7, CMC

CMC/af/ir/2024

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