Senior Health Team attends Regional Health Security meeting

With Heath Security designed to safeguard populations from global health – Saint Lucia is actively taking steps to enhance its health services .

Recently , a team of Senior Health Officials including Chief Medical Officer – Dr. Sharon Belmar-George, National Epidemiologist – Dr. Michelle Francois-D’Auvergne and Director of Clinical Services and Laboratory Director of the Millennium Heights Medical Complex – Dr. Wayne Felicien recently attended the “Regional Health Security (RHS) and Regional Coordinating Mechanism for Health Security (RCM-HS) Workshop in Georgetown Guyana. The workshop took place from July 28-29 .

The spread of infectious diseases that lead to outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics threatens regional and global health security. These new and re-emerging threats test the responsiveness and resilience of health systems and require strategic interventions to manage.

In the Caribbean region, most of the countries/islands consist of small, under-resourced populations with interconnected porous borders and tend to rely heavily on tourism and is more susceptible to disasters and climate change. With that, health security is one important aspect which is designed to safeguard the well-being of individuals, communities and populations from threats to their health and safety. Therefore, there was a need to take a multi-tiered, cross sectional, well-coordinated approach to strengthen prevention, preparedness and response at a national and regional level.

The objectives of the workshop included:

– Update on the Global Framework, Agencies and Partners that support Regional Health Security

– Update on Regional Health Security Pathway including public health threats and priorities of Member States and agencies

– Present Caribbean tailored regional public health goods for improving surveillance and early warning systems, laboratory systems and workforce capacities and coordination mechanisms for advancing the regional health security pathway

– Strengthen agencies/partners coordination and collaboration mechanisms and strategies for seamless execution of the Caribbean Pandemic Fund grants and other work for building capacity in member states for pandemic preparedness and response and advancing in regional health security.

During the workshop Dr. Belmar-George chaired Session 2: Innovative Solutions for RHS Strengthening Surveillance inclusive of Early Warning Systems and Dr. Michelle Francois-D’Auvergne presented on Mechanisms in National Action Plans for Health Security.

The workshop was funded by the Pandemic Fund (PF) Project, “Reducing the Public Health Impact of Pandemics in the Caribbean through Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (PRP)” with the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) as the Executing Agency and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) as the Implementing Entity.

Saint Lucia recognizes the leadership and efforts of CARPHA for implementing innovative, Caribbean tailored regional public health goods and mechanisms for advancing regional health security.