The Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) has received a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to help in the response to the (COVID-19 pandemic and Guyana will be among the beneficiaries.
The grant, which was signed 5 June 2020 has been made available through the IDB Japan Special Fund.
A release yesterday from CARPHA said that the funds valued at US$750,000 will support the enhancement of Laboratory Res-ponse Capacity at CARPHA and strengthen real-time disease surveillance and response through the CARPHA Regional Travelers Health Program (THP) for all 26 of the Agency’s Member States. In addition, it will bolster countries’ COVID-19 detection capacities in participating countries (Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago).
“The beneficiary countries will gain from CARPHA’s collective public health epidemiology and disease surveillance and prevention knowledge, convening capacity and project management expertise in coordinating their individual responses to the COVID-19 virus. However, it is expected that the outputs and work conducted under this grant will be shared with all CARPHA Member States (CMS) which include the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States; and in keeping with its mandate, CARPHA will work with its Member States in both their collective and individual COVID-19 responses,” said Dr Joy St John, CARPHA Executive Director in the release.
The grant will fund the expansion of CARPHA’s THP and the modification of its early warning and response surveillance Travel Health information System (THiS) to participating countries to facilitate real-time reporting, monitoring, and response to COVID-19. This component will also enable the development and implementation of the Caribbean travel health mobile app for real time information sharing.
The release said that the grant will also support the training of Rapid Response Teams in participating countries. Transportation and shipping of COVID-19 laboratory specimens to CARPHA for testing will also be supported.
Activities under that Grant are expected to run from July 2020 and run until June 2022.
