CABINET Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon on Wednesday told reporters that Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran earlier this week reported to Cabinet on the “notional” increases of the dreaded Chikungunya virus. 

The increases are notional, he explained, because confirmation of the cases is a result of specialised testing in Trinidad. “And therefore, the clinical diagnosis must be supported by those sophisticated tests,” Luncheon said at his weekly post-Cabinet press conference at the Office of the President, in Georgetown.
Luncheon said while it is true that symptoms of the virus are noticeably increasing, it is difficult in the absence of this sophisticated testing to determine if an individual has Chikungunya or not.
“So soon as ya back hut ya a little, everybody run and holler Chikungunya. Soon as ya foot hut ya lil bit, Chikungunya. And therefore the complaints of Chikungunya just mushroomed and we have to take that into consideration. The bottom line is the test results have in no way gotten a surge the way in which the symptomatic cases have,” Luncheon remarked.