Medical Officer of Health Dr. Roger Duncan has given the assurance to the Vincentian public that there is capacity to safely, reliably and sustainably test for Monkeypox here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Duncan was at the time speaking at an open forum for Monkeypox which saw presentations from various professionals in the health sector.
“If we are going to minimize the impact on individual and population, and community health, we’re going to have to be able to early detect any monkeypox activity and contain it” Duncan said.
Dr. Duncan said the first step to ensuring this is making reliable testing accessible.
“The first pillar of this is to have access to safe, reliable, sustainable testing for monkepox. Based on everything we have been doing for COVID-19, we were able to access the ability to test. I am really pleased with my conversation with the Chief Laboratory Technologist Mr. Elliot Samuel, who has indicated that we are currently capable to do approximately 400 monkeypox tests in country, today; which means that if samples are collected today, they could be processed in twenty four hours and we’ll have a result,” he said.
Dr. Duncan said that while the capacity to conduct 400 tests is currently available, conversations have been initiated with regional and international partners to gain access to further testing.
