PORT OF SPAIN – The Trinidad and Tobago government Tuesday said that it would be implementing thermal screening at the airports here as the island responded to a call by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) to strengthen surveillance activities to detect any unusual respiratory health event as the number of people infected with a new virus in China increased significantly.
Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, speaking on a radio station here, said that health authorities would be “even more vigilant with the captains of aircraft where they will have to fill out forms stating that no passengers are ill, no passengers have fevers.
‘We will be stepping up our port health surveillance and we are revisiting and making sure our isolation capacity is up to date,” he added.
PAHO/WHO has issued an alert to its member countries on the Novel Coronavirus (nCoV), recommending that “health care workers have access to up to date information on the illness, be familiar with the principles and procedures for handling nCoV infections, and be trained to inquire about a patient’s travel history in order to connect this information with clinical data.”
It said that while cases have been reported in China, Thailand and Japan, there is “no evidence to suggest that person-to-person transmission occurs easily,” and suggests that national authorities “review the actions considered in response to the spread of SARS CoV in 2003, adapting and/or adopting those that are proportionate to the current risk.”
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). (CMC)
