Heads of government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) meeting in their 43rd regular meeting in Suriname last week have commended the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) for its continued comprehensive response to COVID-19 in keeping with the Agency’s mandate.

This commendation of the Trinidad-headquartered Agency is contained in the communique which was issued at the end of the July 3-5 Conference under the heading “Health” in which they acknowledged that COVID-19 still remains a pandemic with a substantial number of cases still being reported across the Region. The Heads also acknowledged that the impact of COVID-19 has demonstrated that, as countries advance towards recovery and resilience, a whole-of-government and society approach was needed which carefully balanced public health measures and economic recovery programmes.

They therefore urged the multi-lateral financial institutions to recognise the urgent need assistance as it is critical for Member States to strengthen social safety nets decimated by the support rendered to citizens during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Heads of Government emphasised that this support was critical as there was genuine suffering and hardship being experienced by a significant number of people in the Region. They lamented the loss of face to face schooling time and its impact on the educational performance and all-round development of the students in the Community.

The Heads of government emphasised that responsible individual behaviours, vaccination, strengthened health systems and continued and enhanced vigilance, were all essential factors for successfully navigating through this current phase of the pandemic.

They recognised that measures should therefore be put in place to reduce the impact of COVID-19 taking into account the incidence of Long COVID which could result in a significant increase in chronic illness and disability that could potentially further overwhelm the health sector including its labour force, especially where countries already had a high burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).

They noted that as the health sector moved towards recovery after COVID-19, it was an opportunity to restructure health care services and public health programmes using the lessons learnt during the pandemic to respond to re-emerging and new diseases which may cause pandemics.

The Heads of Government of the 20 member Community paid tribute to Vincentian, Dr Douglas Slater the retiring Assistant Secretary-General, Human
and Social Development at the CARICOM Secretariat and thanked him for his service to the Region.