Jamaica: Government equipping new health system to tackle current and future health emergencies

Jamaica: Government equipping new health system to tackle current and future health emergencies
Jamaica: Government equipping new health system to tackle current and future health emergencies

The Government of Jamaica is currently equipping  public health system for managing the coronavirus pandemic situation on the island. Prime Minister Andrew Holness stated that this Public Health system would help them to tackle future emergencies.

On 22nd October Friday, the handover ceremony was held during which $40 million genome sequencing machine at the National influenza centre, which is in the university hospital of West Indies in Saint Andrew were handed over. During the handover. PM Holness said that the number of resources are increasing the capacity of the country to tackle and manage the emerging health challenges.

He noted that “there will always be adverse events outside of our control and the Government must be deliberate and systematic in building our resilience and investing in our capacity to understand future shocks, and this is exactly what we are doing. We are enhancing our national capacity to test for not only new variants that cause COVID-19 but for other viruses that may emerge in the future.”

The equipment, purchased by the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund, an agency of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), will facilitate testing for new COVID-19 variants.

The samples that were currently taken were sent to the Trinidad and Tobago in Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) for testing.

While mutations are common in the process of how the virus spreads, the data from genomic sequencing would be providing the main information regarding the main carrier of the variation, which would further help in tackling similar cases in future.

PM Holness said. “We will now have the capacity to manage the endemic phase of the pandemic because there are always going to be new strains of the virus emerging, and we don’t have to wait six weeks to know if it is here. Our policies and strategies can be informed much better than before, and actions can be taken much earlier.”