Georgetown: More than 5000 persons have been reported to have contracted the Chikungunya virus, although only 105 cases have been confirmed, Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud disclosed.
He said there are 5230 suspected cases of the virus in the country. Persaud explained that indeed there was a marked increase in cases, and it was time that the population began to take more proactive measures to protect themselves and others.
However, Persaud said that from the 5230 suspected cases of Chikungunya, there were only 105 tested and confirmed. The 105 cases were confirmed from the 261 samples sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) in Trinidad and Tobago for testing. This indicated that more than half of the samples sent to the agency returned with negative results. This begs the question of how many of the 5230 cases are in actuality positive Chikungunya cases. “Chikungunya is well-established now… we expected that it would be this widespread at this point in time…definitely with people’s movement,” remarked.
Meanwhile, Dr Persaud said that it was now a major challenge for the Government to facilitate the testing of samples taken from persons here, since the guidelines at CARPHA have since changed. He pointed out that the Trinidad and Tobago-based medical facility is no longer collecting all of the samples, since it is under extreme pressure given that none of the other countries in the Eastern Caribbean have the facilities required to conduct the testing.
He noted that PAHO is still slated to aid in the operationalisation of the facility as promised.
Dr Persaud said that the Government was working towards opening the facility in a short while and will begin training staff for the facility as early as this month (October), noting that the requisite infrastructure is already in place.
“When we do the test to say that it’s positive, we want to make sure that it’s really positive,” the Chief Medical Officer said.
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