 The Ministry of Health and Wellness has received a consignment of a personal protective equipment from the Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO. We have Lisa Joseph with this story. The Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO, has made a donation of personal protection equipment, PPEs, to the Ministry of Health and Wellness. PAHO country program specialist, Reynolds Uet, says the donation is a recognition of support to the ministry for its response to COVID-19. The funding grant that made the donation possible was made available from the Canadian Government and the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. Through technical cooperation with St. Lucia, PAHO has provided more than half a million US dollars in assistance to the Ministry of Health since the onset of the pandemic. We are satisfied with the achievements made by the Government of St. Lucia and the leadership of the Ministry of Health in their effective and measured response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is anticipated that the PPEs will support infection prevention and control program to strengthen its case management and screening of COVID-19 cases in St. Lucia. As we progress through the phase of the pandemic, the health system needs to continue to be prepared and respond to other health emergencies and support disease surveillance and prevention activities of any new or existing infectious disease. The UK Government has pledged to more than £1 billion to counter the impact of COVID-19 globally as well as to find and distribute the vaccine. Steve McCready is the resident British Commissioner in St. Lucia. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office has also adapted over 200 programs as well as using centrally managed programs to channel these resources to the global response. I'm very delighted that the UK has supported PAHO's COVID-19 response here in the Caribbean through the World Health Organization and topped this up with further support to eight Caribbean states throughout the Caribbean and this has been done through the Caribbean Development Team of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. This has resulted in combined total so far of 55 million Eastern Caribbean dollars being used in the Caribbean to combat coronavirus. St. Lucia is also benefiting from the commitment of the Government of Canada to the global COVID fight. The Canadian Government has provided five million dollars to the region. St. Lucia has been allocated $700,000 in equipment. This follows diagnostic equipment that was presented to the Ezra Long Lab. We have here PPEs but there's also medical respirators, medical and respirators, mask and face shields and so on. It's initially when I was seeing that the progress in terms of procuring everything was so slow when we were doing this back in probably April I thought it would be not relevant anymore but unfortunately seven months down the road this is still very very relevant for every country as we still we're facing you know the threat of second waves and so on so in a way I'm happy that it's here even though it would have been I would have preferred before but it's still very it's extremely relevant unfortunately. Minister for Health and Wellness Senator Honourable Mary Isaac expressed a profound gratitude of the Government and people of St. Lucia to the donor partners. It is with the generosity of friendly governments such as Canada who is here today handing over much-needed PPEs and medical equipment that assist us in our continued efforts to contain COVID-19. I wish to take this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to all frontline workers around the world. Our frontline workers are endangering their own lives to strengthen our healthcare systems and protect every single one of us who have survived COVID-19. As part of the Ministry of Health's agreement with Paho the Ministry's to provide periodic reports on the achievements made to control COVID-19, manage infection, prevention and control among healthcare workers, interventions at ports of entry, case management, risk communication and community involvement. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reports in