GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — The Guyana-based Caribbean Community (Caricom) secretariat

says it is formalising recommendations to deal with any possible incidence of the Ebola virus and is also improving efforts to respond to the chikungunya epidemic.

A Caricom statement said that chief medical officers and other technical health experts from member states met, via video conference, to rationalise the region’s response to the two diseases.

The meeting was convened by the Caricom Secretariat in collaboration with the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA).

“Among draft proposals that were fleshed out at the meeting was the achievement of the core competencies cited in WHO’s International Health Regulations. Discussions additionally focused on the need to urge a calm but prudent response when applying the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) recommendation with regards to the Ebola virus — no restrictions on travel and trade in areas where the Ebola transmission has occurred,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr Carissa Etienne, who has ended a visit to Guyana, and has assured that there was a very low death rate from chikungunya, despite the significant illness and disability it causes.

Dr Etienne paid a courtesy call on Caricom Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque and met with officials of the Directorate of Human and Social Development to discuss the region’s response to the current disease alerts.

Dr Etienne said that chikungunya has had a significant effect on productivity and the social and economic life of affected communities, and it was therefore critical to concentrate response efforts on vector reduction.

“It is a household mosquito (aedes. aegypti) and all householders must become active in reducing the breeding sites inside and outside of their homes … garbage disposal, drainage of water, emptying of containers.

“We also have to ask people to sleep under bed nets so that you don’t get bitten, particularly an infected person. The treatment is mini-supportive, we give Tylenol, Paracetamol, Acetaminophen,

and ensure fluid intake,” Dr Etienne said.

She said multi-sectoral action was needed to ensure access to water, to avoid storage which encourages mosquito breeding. Adequate garbage disposal and activating communities to take better care of themselves at the Community and individual levels were other critical responses the PAHO director proposed.