CARPHA boosts regional capacity through IATA training

The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) has trained 18 peo­ple from 15 Mem­ber States to safe­ly trans­port in­fec­tious sub­stances and di­ag­nos­tic spec­i­mens across the re­gion.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) In­fec­tious Sub­stances Trans­port Train-the-Train­er Work­shop was held from May 25 to 29 at the Kapok Ho­tel in Port of Spain. Con­duct­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with IA­TA and sup­port­ed through CARPHA's Pan­dem­ic Fund Project, the ini­tia­tive aimed to strength­en re­gion­al pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness, lab­o­ra­to­ry sys­tems and work­force de­vel­op­ment.

Par­tic­i­pants came from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Bermu­da, the British Vir­gin Is­lands, Cay­man Is­lands, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Guyana, Ja­maica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and Turks and Caicos.

CARPHA Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Dr Lisa In­dar said the train­ing would im­prove the re­gion's abil­i­ty to re­spond to pub­lic health threats.

"The safe trans­port of in­fec­tious sub­stances is of­ten an un­seen but es­sen­tial part of pro­tect­ing pub­lic health. When spec­i­mens move safe­ly and cor­rect­ly across our coun­tries and to re­gion­al ref­er­ence lab­o­ra­to­ries, it strength­ens con­fi­dence in our sys­tems and sup­ports faster de­tec­tion, bet­ter de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and more co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse. Through this ini­tia­tive, CARPHA is help­ing to build a re­gion­al net­work of train­ers who can take this ex­per­tise back home and mul­ti­ply its im­pact across the Caribbean," Dr In­dar said.

Participants from eighteen CARPHA Member States are now certified regional trainers to support biosafety, biosecurity, laboratory strengthening, and pandemic preparedness efforts across the Caribbean. [Image courtesy CARPHA]

CARIBBEAN PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY

Par­tic­i­pants re­ceived in­struc­tion on the clas­si­fi­ca­tion, pack­ag­ing, mark­ing, la­belling, doc­u­men­ta­tion and han­dling re­quire­ments for in­fec­tious sub­stances un­der cur­rent IA­TA Dan­ger­ous Goods Reg­u­la­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al safe­ty stan­dards.

Di­rec­tor of Sur­veil­lance, Dis­ease Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol, Dr Ho­race Cox, said: "Ef­fi­cient and com­pli­ant spec­i­men trans­port sup­ports time­ly lab­o­ra­to­ry di­ag­no­sis, sur­veil­lance, and pub­lic health in­ter­ven­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing out­breaks and pub­lic health emer­gen­cies."

Par­tic­i­pants are ex­pect­ed to repli­cate the train­ing in their re­spec­tive coun­tries to strength­en na­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty and im­prove com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al ship­ping stan­dards.