The region’s main public health agency has put residents of Barbados and other Caribbean states on alert for two new highly-contagious COVID-19 variants and the reemergence of polio in the Americas.The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) also predicted that the BA.5 variant will cause a massive increase in COVID-19 cases across the region.In an interview with CARPHA’s Communications Manager Carlon Kirton, following the World Health Organisation’s recent declaration of Monkeypox as a public health emergency of international concern, the agency’s Executive Director Dr Joy St John expressed grave concern about these developments. She cautioned that the situation could worsen because of vaccine hesitancy and an anti-vax campaign being waged in and outside of the region.Dr St John said CARPHA has expanded its range of tests and increased testing for the sub-variant of the Omicron variant.“It’s mainly BA.5, some BA.4. BA.5 is pushing everything else. But we are also seeing BE.1 and BF.1, which act just like BA.5 and spread very quickly,” she reported.“We will continue to monitor what’s out there in the world, what’s of concern in terms of global transmission so that we would be able to keep on top of the detection tests like what we are doing for Monkeypox and the gene sequencing like what we are doing for COVID-19.”
