The World Health Organization (WHO) has changed St Vincent and the Grenadines COVID-19 classification status.
Earlier this week WHO stated that SVG had community transmission to which St Vincent objected.
According to St Vincent’s Health Ministry, the change in categorization was made without the input of the IHR National Focal Point of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
This miscommunication they stated resulted when an email notification of intent to change was sent to an inactive email address.
Based on the definition of community transmission, the Ministry further said that the National IHR Focal Point formally objected to the change in categorization to “community transmission”.
Community transmission of COVID-19 as defined by WHO on March 13, 2020, is “evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases, or by increasing positive tests through sentinel samples (routine systematic testing of respiratory samples from established laboratories).
As of Thursday 21st January 2021, the WHO updated their COVID-19 dashboard to reflect the change.
SVG is now classified as having “ Clusters Of Cases”.
According to the Ministry of Health, the objection took into consideration the fact that recent cases of COVID-19 in St. Vincent and the Grenadines with no travel history are still under investigation to determine the source of infection.
There are now five hundred and fifteen (515) local cases of COVID-19, the majority of whom are linked to various clusters.
One hundred and twenty-two (122) persons have recovered, five hundred and thirty- one (531) cases remain active, and two (2) persons with COVID-19 have died.
Six hundred and fifty-five (655) cases of COVID-19 have been reported in St. Vincent and the Grenadines since March 2020. All positive cases will remain isolated until cleared.
