Saint Lucia’s health ministry details three-pronged approach to dealing with EVD during parliament sitting.

A special joint sitting of Parliament was convened last Thursday to brief parliamentarians on Saint Lucia's preparedness to deal with the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

Officials from the Ministry of Health, Wellness, Human Services and Gender Relations presented to Parliament the facts on Ebola and Saint Lucia’s preparedness to deal with the virus.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Merlene Fredericks, explained that the Ministry of Health has developed a three-pronged approach to deal with EVD: prevention, isolation, and follow-up.

“Regarding prevention, our primary aim is to prevent EVD from coming in to the country, and if it comes in we want to catch it early,” she explained. “The second approach would be to isolate and treat any infected person, so we want to ensure that there is proper quarantine. The third would be contact tracing and follow up measures to prevent the virus from spreading to the wider population.”

OECS Commission Director General Dr. Didacus Jules, said the OECS is leveraging diplomatic relations with all its partners for assistance in dealing with Ebola.  “We’ve alerted the British High Commissioner about the efforts being made by the OECS in support of the ALBA countries [and] that Agencies such as DEFATE could be on board,” he said.

“The President of the Caribbean Development Bank has already signaled to the governments his readiness to receive any requests made by member states and to provide the support required.” Thursday’s presentations were followed by a question and answer segment to address the concerns of parliamentarians.