U.S. commits US$6M to health partnership with T&T

The Unit­ed States has com­mit­ted US$6 mil­lion to sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go’s health sys­tem over the next two years.

The fund­ing will be ad­min­is­tered by the Min­istry of Health to pre­vent, de­tect and con­tain pub­lic health threats in both coun­tries.

U.S. Chargé d’Af­faires Char­lie J. Fran­ta III and U.S. Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion Caribbean Of­fice Coun­try Di­rec­tor Dr Paul Young an­nounced the fund­ing dur­ing a meet­ing with Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe ear­li­er this month.

The as­sis­tance forms part of the Amer­i­ca First Glob­al Health Strat­e­gy. It comes as HIV/AIDS fund­ing un­der the U.S. Pres­i­dent’s Emer­gency Plan for AIDS Re­lief en­ters a planned two-year draw­down pe­ri­od.

The funds will sup­port HIV pre­ven­tion, care and treat­ment, dis­ease sur­veil­lance, lab­o­ra­to­ry sys­tems and work­force train­ing.

Chargé d’Af­faires Fran­ta said the Unit­ed States re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with Trinidad and To­ba­go to im­prove pub­lic health in both coun­tries.

He said the part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of Health will con­tin­ue as both gov­ern­ments work on health pri­or­i­ties.

The Min­istry of Health will co­or­di­nate im­ple­men­ta­tion of the pro­grammes sup­port­ed by the grant.

Of­fi­cials said the ini­tia­tive will ad­dress pub­lic health threats and strength­en sys­tems linked to sur­veil­lance and re­sponse.

The Unit­ed States and Trinidad and To­ba­go have main­tained co­op­er­a­tion in health through ex­ist­ing bi­lat­er­al arrange­ments and tech­ni­cal sup­port pro­grammes.