Lead coordinator of the just concluded Seek and Save exercise, Dr Dion Greenidge, is pushing back on criticism of the expansive three-week-long national survey, describing the exercise as an overwhelming success that yielded many key data points that could inform public health policy going forward.
The campaign, run by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the University of the West Indies has raised questions by some, including Opposition Leader Joseph Atherley, who queried recently in the House of Assembly if the information was being used for much more than as advertised. Atherley pointed to questions on the survey surrounding household income as having no bearing on health or more specifically the search for suspected symptomatic cases of COVID-19.
However, in an interview with the DAILY NATION, Greenidge explained that over the course of the exercise it became obvious that persons were of the view that the programme had a singular focus. He pointed out that data garnered gave an invaluable insight into matters such as the areas with the highest concentrations of NCDs, pinpointing areas that have environmental conditions for dengue, while determining if there are any socio-economic linkages that can be discerned.
At its conclusion the programme was able to find 20 COVID-19 cases, which some pundits have argued gives little insight into prevalence of the virus, given that this number is in most cases less than the daily findings through contact tracing. (CLM)
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