WASHINGTON, May 15, CMC – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Friday approved a US$750,000 grant to support the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) in the coordination of the regional health response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Washington-based financial institution said that the grant is being financed by the IDB Japan Special Fund which was first established in1988 by the Japanese government to foster social and economic growth throughout the IDB’s borrowing member countries.
As of April 2020, Japan has already committed more than US$230 million to this fund.
“Coordination is of utmost importance in this fight against the spread of COVID-19 and CARPHA continues to play a critical role in keeping with their intergovernmental mandate from CARICOM,” said Japan’s Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, Tatsuo Hirayama.
“What is a threat to one country in the Caribbean is a threat to all,” he added.

The grant will support CARPHA to work with Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago to enhance their COVID-19 detection abilities, mobilize surge response capacity and strengthen real-time disease surveillance and response.

The IDB statement said that this will be done over the next two years and a portion of the grant will also be directed at strengthening CARPHA’s laboratory capacity to meet the additional COVID-19 specimen-testing demands from their 26 member states.

“These interventions will translate into CARPHA maintaining efficient turn-around times for sample testing on a 24/7 basis, the establishment and training of rapid response teams, expansion of their Regional Tourism and Travelers Health Programme, creation of a Caribbean travel health app and strengthening human resource capacity”

IDB’s Group Country Representative for Trinidad and Tobago, Rocío Medina-Bolívar, said COVID-19 has upended countries across the world, many lives have unfortunately been lost already and the pandemic is significantly challenging Caribbean economies.

“This grant is directly aligned with the IDB Group’s COVID-19 response and is one of many measures we have taken to support Governments and safeguard citizens across our borrowing member countries in the Caribbean,” he added.

The IDB said that it relates to responding to the health priorities of the Caribbean, it has worked with CARPHA in the past and most recently supported the expansion of CARPHA’s regional tourism health information, surveillance and monitoring and response system.
“Similarly to that intervention, the IDB team on the ground in Trinidad and Tobago will work closely with CARPHA to execute the different components of this grant which will further strengthen the Caribbean’s regional health response to the pandemic,” it added.