 Hello and welcome to interview a production of the government information service. I am your host for the Neptune Today we'll focus on the topic surveillance for coronavirus at ports of entry and with us to discuss this topic is chief environmental Health officer Parker Ravnenan. Welcome to the program Thank you miss Neptune and thanks for having me in your program this afternoon wonderful as we look at the Department of Health and Wellness to Focus on surveillance at the ports of entry. One of the areas is very important is the international health regulation Can you tell us a little more about this? in 2005 the World Health Organization Establish what is called international health regulations that governs the operations of countries In terms of ensuring that there are certain levels of capacity to respond to emergencies Previous to that you had an all regulations that dealt with just six diseases among them would have been yellow fever plague and such however It was thought that restricting international health just to six diseases was inadequate and so the new international regulations made provisions for diseases as well as other events that may constitute public health impact and therefore this new regulations came into force in 2005 and The world health members of the World Health Assembly signed on to these regulations having done that What essentially transpired is that? One St. Lucia signed on it became an internationally binding piece of legislation and St. Lucia was given a certain amount of time by which to ensure that they Requirements of the international regulations were met within country and therefore they had annual reporting in terms of the progress that was being made By this country in terms of where we were in terms of implementing the provisions of the international health regulations so all countries that are members of the World Health Assembly are guided by this piece of regulations and Okay, and with the coronavirus we saw that the World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency of International concern. Can you tell us a little more about this? What does this mean? right, so initially when the corollavirus Was first touted around it was restricted to China and the World Health Organization they had a preliminary meeting and they discussed the pros of cons of that particular virus and how it was being transmitted and spread at the time and the first Decision that was taken by the World Health Organization is at the time was that they would not publish it as a Public health emergency of international concern However, when you begin to have spread of the disease So it began to leave the borders of China and got into other countries Then there was a second meeting held by the World Health Organization And they began to look at the pros and cons of the transmission of coronavirus and what it would mean for other countries and then having looked at also the impact that the disease was having on China in terms of the number of persons that were getting sick the number of people that were dying along with the spread to other countries it was then that the World Health Organization decided that they would declare a public health emergency of international concern So what that really means is that? coronavirus needed to have An international response not just by China but by other countries in the world as well So in essence when when it was declared the public health emergency of international concern countries now were to look at their own Systems and to tighten up on the systems and to ensure that They can respond to a case or cases of that disease and to ensure that capacities are implemented within countries So there was a heightened Awareness and preparedness that is required on behalf of countries to be able to deal with the advent of coronavirus in the specific country and hence The declaration was made and subsequent to that There were different levels That was been flagged as to the risk to different countries and so at one time it was low risk Now we have been told by the World Health Organization that countries in the Caribbean including St. Lucia at a high risk for getting an imported case it means that Somebody who is infected with coronavirus can come into your country and therefore you need to heighten your preparedness for that eventuality, okay So that means definitely at this point in time the countries around the world have to do more at the ports That's correct. So not just at the ports, but within country to look at countries capacity Because the port is just one line of defense But what about when people comes into your country you're able to respond in terms of your quarantine measures at your hospitals Ensuring that you have your your PPAs personal protective clothing and equipment available Ensuring that you have systems in terms of being able to respond to a case So it is not just points of entry, but to ensure that overall as a country There is national preparation that is done to ensure that you are able to respond as a country Well, we are due for a break when we come back. We'll definitely continue this discussion. We will be back in a moment With a clean towel if there is no water do the same washing motions with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer containing at least 70% alcohol wash your hands wash them right this message brought to you courtesy the Bureau of Health Education of the Ministry of Health and Wellness Welcome back. We will continue our discussion with Mr. Parker Ragnon on the surveillance of coronavirus at the ports of entry So if it's if it's possible that you can tell us what provisions are put in place at the ports to actually conduct civilians sure St. Lucia, there are many ports of entry. We have two airports and we have a number of seaports In 2014 the cabinet of ministers Looking at the situation when you were at the height of the Ebola scare at the time reviewed the St. Lucia's Procedures at the ports of entry and decided that they were going to designate two ports of entry For the provisions to ensure that the provisions of the international regulations were available. That is capacity to respond In the country Because we recognize that based on the number of seaports that you have it was virtually impossible to have all the Resources at each one of the seaports and that is why the decision was taken and communicated to the World Health Organization That they are two designated points of entry for international regulation purposes and these were the you and our International Airport and the Castery seaport. So there are two different methods of surveillance that is going on the aircrafts Flights are generally shot coming into St. Lucia We have flights coming out of the US that may be four hours three hours five hours depending where you're from Canada probably five hours five and a half hours the UK Probably eight hours. So they are relatively short. What we rely on is information that is Provided to us by the pilots through the airline agents so if they pick up that there is a sick person on the aircraft they would inform us and It is one day plane is en route to St. Lucia So it means that our capacity to respond has to be very very quick Because a plane may be two hours from landing when you are given information That there is a sick person on board that flight so at at the airports what we have is we have nurses Were stationed at the spot to conduct surveillance of all incoming passengers and They do profiling their times they would based on How a passenger presents himself at the before they get to immigration They would be pulled off and triage interviewed separately But given corona what we do is we are very very dependent on travel history Travel history is what is important for us at this point in time And therefore we rely on information sharing with our order border control agencies So immigration for example, they have access to the advanced passenger tracking system they also have other ways of profiling people coming in through intelligence and Therefore they are able to share with us information in advance of a plane landing in St. Lucia We also have customs and immigration and they to receive information and therefore we rely a lot on Intelligence and sharing of information with our border control agencies namely Customs and excise and the immigration department that is very very important for us we also have Asked the immigration officers to vet the passports of people come into St. Lucia carefully Because people are not always honest in terms of indicating what they had visited within the last six weeks the last three weeks So we are concerned about where people have visited within the last 14 days for corolla So what we have asked our immigration counterparts to do is to screen the passport vetted and to look at what countries people have Visited once anybody is picked up even at that point of immigration They are then referred to the nurses now at the airports what we have we have Holding rooms that are separate and apart to everybody else So this suspect persons taken to that room and They would be examined further and questioned further Based on the findings of the nurse at that at that port Then a decision would be taken as to what the person is allowed to continue the normal route to get clearance Or what they did in its special medical assistance and that is where the decision would be made and provided for at the seaports You have a different system. We rely on the ships that are coming to St. Lucia to submit what they call a maritime declaration of health and a maritime declaration of health gives us a status of The health of the passengers on board and for St. Lucia we have asked for a 24 hour advance submission of that document and Also, there is an updated version that is submitted when the ship comes in the morning and is asking for clearance the port health officer boards along with the customs immigration and the ships agent and Then reviews that document and the determination is then made as to whether to grant the ship clearance or not If there are sick people on the ship generally, they are quarantined on board the ship in their room and are not allowed to come out To be able to meet with our citizens and the public or to spread any infectious disease Wonderful and any final words before we go Well, we just want to continue to I short a St. Lucia public that we are doing all possible We do not want to come here and tell you that there's a hundred percent full-proof system and nothing can come in But we are doing the best that we can as possible to ensure the safety of all that is our citizens and visitors to St. Lucia And we want to continue to work with you and you with us if you have information that you'd like to share please contact the Ministry of Health It's 468 5300 if you need to transfer transmit any information to us Because we want to work together and collaborate as we continue to ensure and there's a safer St. Lucia for all of us Thank you. Thank you so much. Mr. Ragnar and for providing us with this information. It was very valuable. Thank you Well, that's how we come to the end of interview a production of the government information service on behalf of the entire production team I am finna left you and found so watching