IDB gives $5m to CARPHA for covid19 fight

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $5.1 million (US$750,000) grant to help support the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and other Caribbean public health establishments in the regional response to the covid19 pandemic.

In a release on Monday, IDB said the grant is being financed by the IDB Japan Special Fund.

The fund was first established in 1988 by the Government of Japan to foster social and economic growth throughout the IDB’s borrowing member countries.

The IDB said as of April 2020, Japan has already committed more than US$230 million to the fund.

Ambassador of Japan to TT, Tatsuo Hirayama said what is a threat to one country in the Caribbean is a threat to all.

“Co-ordination is of utmost importance in this fight against the spread of covid19 and CARPHA continues to play a critical role in keeping with their inter-governmental mandate from Caricom,” he said.

The IDB said the grant would support CARPHA to work with Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and TT to enhance their covid19 detection abilities, mobilise surge response capacity and strengthen real-time disease surveillance and response.

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 covid19 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 travellers' health program, creation of a Caribbean travel health app and strengthening human resource capacity.

IDB group country representative for TT, Rocío Medina-Bolívar, said covid19 has up-ended countries across the world, many lives have unfortunately been lost already and the pandemic is significantly challenging Caribbean economies.

Medina-Bolívar said the grant is directly aligned with the IDB group’s covid19 response and is one of many measures the establishment has taken to support governments and safeguard citizens across borrowing member-countries in the Caribbean.

The IDB said the team on the ground in TT 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.