Trinidad awaits H1N1 confirmation

Port of Spain, Trinidad. (File photo)

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, June 5, 2009 – Health officials in Trinidad and Tobago are still awaiting the results of additional testing done on a woman who tested positive for the H1N1 virus.

The woman remains in isolation at an undisclosed health institution.

In what it has referred to as the country’s “first probable case”, the Ministry of Health said the local woman who recently visited several countries affected by the virus first tested negative, then positive for the virus. The test was being repeated to confirm the results and the outcome was supposed to have been revealed by yesterday afternoon.

However, the ministry has since announced that it would update the nation on that situation later today.

Minister of Health Senator Jerry Narace has cut short a trip to the 18th Meeting of the CARICOM Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) held in Jamaica to return home in light of the development.

He returned to the island last night and will be chairing a meeting of the country’s Inter-Ministerial and Inter-Agency Pandemic Preparedness Committee before making a statement at a press conference.