Bridgetown, Barbados, February 11, 2010 (CDEMA) - CARICOM sends a regional eight member team of health personnel to Haiti. The team of specialists from Barbados and Saint Lucia left for Haiti today to begin two weeks of voluntary service. These individuals will provide emergency and specialized health care to earthquake victims and compliment the work of teams from the Sub Regional Focal Point Jamaica.
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA)
(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) More than 300 persons from eleven Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member States and Associate Members have so far been involved in the response to the devastating earthquake which struck Haiti on 12 January.
The Region’s initial response was spearheaded by Jamaica, the sub-regional focal point with responsibility for the northern geographic zone of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) which includes Haiti among its five countries. CDEMA is the regional response mechanism for natural disasters.
The Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), are jointly developing a study on the impact of El Nino, a global weather phenomenon, on the Region, according to Barbados' Minister for Agriculture and Urban Development, the Hon. Anthony Wood.
"All of us gathered here are well-seized of the fact that climate change and the pandemic, as separate occurrences, are devastating for CARICOM Small Island and Low-lying Coastal Developing States (SIDS). That double threat compounded by the recent eruption of La Soufrière Volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines has stretched our limited human and financial resources.