HEALTH: Caribbean Acknowledges SARS Threat

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, Apr 25 2003 (IPS) - Until this week, many Caribbean governments were concerned that if they were seen taking steps to combat SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) the moves could cause undue alarm about an outbreak.

But with reports of several new cases in the Far East and North America – Canada in particular – many nations have moved in the past week to deal with the outbreak, taking steps ranging from banning nationals from those countries from crossing their borders to restricting their own citizens from visiting states on the list of affected.

In the 15-nation Caribbean Community, which includes countries from the Bahamas to Belize in Central America to Suriname on the South American mainland, Belize has taken the most drastic steps by imposing an outright temporary ban on visitors from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, India and Canada.

”No entry visas or entry permits will be issued to persons from these countries for the time being. Entry to Belize may also be refused to any suspected cases of SARS from any other country,” Home Affairs Minister Ralph Fonseca said as the administration issued the advisory to diplomatic missions, airlines and immigration departments around the globe. Belizeans have also been advised not to travel to countries on the list.

Other nations, including St. Lucia, Barbados and Trinidad, have urged their travelling citizens to avoid what officials termed as non-essential travel to countries with confirmed cases

Since the outbreak started, this tourist-dependent region has been treading lightly on the issue, hoping it would simply go away or that cases would be restricted to the Far East and areas that traditionally do not send many tourists to the Caribbean.

But officials say they are beginning to accept that the pneumonia-like illness will be around for a while and to deal with the issue.

They might have jumped to the task after health authorities in St Lucia had to deal with local media reports in the past week about a SARS case on the island, stemming from a hospitality worker who took ill and was transferred from a private to a state-run facility for treatment.

It turned out that the alleged victim was suffering from a regular flu, but St. Lucian authorities say the scare is proof of how an outbreak could devastate the social systems and fragile economies of small states.

Of particular worry to the region is the situation in Canada, an important source of visitors to the Caribbean, because the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday issued a hotly disputed travel advisory urging people to postpone unnecessary travel to the country’s largest city Toronto.

Many thousands of people from the Caribbean and a similar number from the diaspora in the United Kingdom and the United States travel to Toronto each summer for the annual Caribana carnival street festival. Many also spend time with relatives on both sides of the Atlantic in the summer months.

Caribana spokesman Eric Delfish said that costume bandleaders are going ahead with registration of revellers while at the same time monitoring the spread of the disease and the reaction of authorities.

While City of Toronto officials have in recent years acknowledged the importance of the festival to the economy and tourism industry, the board of directors of the festival is planning to meet over the weekend to discuss the event’s immediate future.

Among regional airlines flying to Canada, Trinidad and Tobago’s BWIA announced this week that it has no plans to abandon seven weekly flights to Toronto, but it did say that flight crews and passengers were being told how to react if a passenger takes ill on a flight or at an airport.

In Barbados, staff at the state-run Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) are busy preparing special facilities to treat any outbreak, given the hundreds of people who alight there from cruise ships or disembark from airlines each week.

”We are not taking any chances and are going out to ensure things are handled properly,” said Andrew Watson, the hospital’s acting director.

”It is important we do not panic out front. We deal with fact and not fiction and rumour. We need to be open with staff on the process,” he added.

In nearby St. Lucia, the health ministry has already identified isolation rooms at its two main airports and at the main seaport, while ambulance and other staff have been trained to handle infected persons.