Port of Spain, Trinidad — The Caribbean Community (Caricom) will convene a special meeting in Trinidad tomorrow to discuss the Ebola virus, a global concern, and the chikungunya disease, a mostly non-fatal but debilitating illness that is at this time striking down communities in the Caribbean.
This will be the 17th Special Meeting of Caricom and will be held at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s at 4:00 pm tomorrow a media advisory from the Office of the Prime Minister stated yesterday.
“The primary purpose of the meeting is to review action being taken regarding the current challenging public health issues facing the Caricom region, namely the Ebola and CHIKV diseases, and to agree on a way forward,” the news release added.
In early September, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar called for the special meeting of Caricom to discuss the public health issues.
This call was made before the United Nations discussed the Ebola disease at its 62nd General Assembly Meeting in New York in late September, which she attended, the release said.
Similar calls for discussion of the health challenges facing the globe and the region were made by Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, and Lead Head of Government for Human Resource Development, Health and HIV/AIDS.
Tomorrow’s meeting is expected to be attended by ministers of foreign affairs and health from around the region and Caricom Heads will also seek to arrive at a consensus with regard to the Caricom candidate for the post of Commonwealth Secretary-General.