Remarks by the Prime Minister of Barbados at the a ceremony where the WHO officially recognized the Best-dos Santos Public Health Lab as a National Influenza Centre (NIC).
April 4, 2024
My role this morning is a very simple role. First and foremost, to thank all involved in this process, Songee, you and your staff, Ministry of Health, who would have allowed this country to be able to benefit from this most important designation as a National Influenza Centre. To the best of my knowledge, within the Caribbean community, there are two regional entities that do what we will now do.
But none of them are national. We have CARPHA, the Caribbean Public Health Agency, which our own Minister of Health, Senior Minister Jerome Walcott, would have helped to establish when he was in opposition, working hard as a consultant. And therefore, CARPHA, both because of its origin and its current leadership, remain dear to our heart.
With Barbadian, Dr. St. John, former Chief Medical Officer, leading there. And then, of course, there’s the virology lab at the University of the West Indies that we all support by reason of our financial support to the University of the West Indies. But to have a national lab so designated is a matter of immense pride for us.
And I say so conscious that I keep telling others that we can finance our roads to victory, but we must have a clear plan. And Barbados has made significant investments over the years in our human capacity, in our skills, in the investments in those willing to do science at the University of the West Indies and elsewhere. But those persons with degrees without opportunity and capacity will come to none.
And therefore, the ability to have continuity of policy, and I make this point over and over, especially in the social sectors and in the economic sectors, but continuity of policy across governments, change of governments, is an absolutely critical aspect of the political stability of our nation. And long may that last. This goes back, therefore, across three governments now.
The one led by Prime Minister Arthur, the one led by Prime Minister Stewart, and the one led, well, technically, Thompson and Stewart, and then the one led by myself. And that is when we do our best. We have shown that it is possible to be able to reach global excellence.
And to have this designation by the World Health Organization says to the rest of the world that this lab has reached these standards and is capable of being trusted. And that’s the most important word in here. Trust in a world where even from social media, the volume of fake news from the people peddling fake goods across the world, passing off as a concept that is well known to the law and has been developed because of the market that exists where people can create things that are not what they say they are.
And therefore, for us to have a lab that can be truly trusted with respect to its results, it doesn’t mean that there’s always perfection. But it means that the systems and the processes are those that are worthy of trust. And that if something goes wrong, that we can easily and quickly determine what has happened in order to get back on the straight and narrow path.
I say this because too often when we make the comment global citizens, Beijing roots, people look at you with dazed eyes. What are you really talking about? How is that possible? Well, it is possible. And we have shown, particularly in the area of public health, that we have been able to produce some of the hemisphere and the world’s best.
This is a country that has produced Sir Kenneth Standard, Sir Kenneth Stewart, Sir George Alleyne, the former head of PAHO. All three names are synonymous with excellence in the journey of public health improvement in the Caribbean and the Americas over the last century. And Barbados should continue to want to assert itself as a global public health leader against that backdrop.
That is why I accepted easily the duty and obligation of working as a co-chair of the One Health Global Initiative with the antimicrobial resistance. Because we understand that fundamentally without health, we have nothing. And if we are not prepared, particularly in a country where there is a dense population in certain areas, we are underpopulated as a nation.
But our pattern of housing is densely populated, particularly within the coastal areas, which makes us therefore more prone, as you know better than I do, to the vagaries of contagious diseases. I am told by those of you who are doctors that the next pandemic will happen. It is not a case of if, but it is a case of when.
And only last week, the Financial Times did a wonderful piece reflecting on the difficult progress that is being made over the course of the last two years, largely because pandemics are usually a cycle of panic and neglect. Panic and neglect. And it is up to us as a government and as an institution to ensure, or as institutions like PAHO and WHO, to ensure that that panic and neglect is removed from our experience in preparation for the next pandemic.
And we, therefore, as a government, are choosing to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. The continued investment in the Barbados Living Lab, which carries us outside of the narrow confines of only monitoring and diagnosis, but looking also at research, is important to us. Because we do not believe that our people are just drawers of water and hewers of wood.
But our people have the capacity also to be at the cutting edge of the research capabilities that we need in this world to make lives better for our people. A companion aspect of this is also our investment in creating the regulatory framework for the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Barbados has had a relationship with pharmaceuticals on or off for just over 130 years, 140 years, as I pointed out, with Carlisle Laboratories. And we are now at a position where that entity as well can undertake significantly more than it has because of the investment made in that institution. In addition to that, this week we meet with other pharmaceutical producers as we continue our effort to build out the framework for that industry, recognizing that, I think it was last year, October or November, that we launched the Barbados White Book, which will therefore lead to the level of legislative reform necessary, as well as the investments and the regulatory framework necessary for us to be more than fill and finish, but actually become involved in the serious research with the living lab and manufacturing with the pharmaceutical industry. Why are we doing all of this? This country cannot continue to invest as we are doing millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in ensuring that our citizens can be the best that they can be by studying at the University of the West Indies, and then not have opportunities for them to remain in the land of their birth, or the land that they choose to really want to live in, simply because we do not have the opportunities for them to work.
The Best-dos Santos Lab immediately presented an opportunity for us to create employment for dozens of persons who had contributed to their own development by making the effort of studying and providing themselves with the skills, only then to be topped up by the international partnerships that we have. We have, therefore, to continue to see this as an area, not just of social stability that is necessary for public health excellence, but also as an investment opportunity, so that regulation can become part and parcel of Barbados’s competitive advantage over other countries in the region and the hemisphere. And it is against that backdrop, therefore, I thank our partners, WHO and PAHO, our partners in the European Union, who particularly have been working with us closely on developing the regulatory framework with the pharmaceutical industry, and who we see as some of our main partners to go to that next level.
Our partners with the Rwanda Food and Drug Agency, who have been extremely, extremely cooperative with us as we have walked this journey over the last 18 months. Our partners with USAID, a partnership, I believe, with the Argentinians before. And I remember that in the midst of all of this, they and others were some who, Panama, from which I came last week, all of them were people who recognized that it is only through solidarity and working together that we can climb the mountain necessary to overcome these difficult, difficult experiences that we’ve had.
I did all that I could to dodge labs when I was at school. It is a confession. I’ve said publicly already, because I went from first to third form, and I had seven science teachers between six terms at school, that I didn’t take to science and chose to stick with maths and languages and humanities.
But in coming into this job, I have perhaps had to force myself to do more and regret my penchant for not wanting to go near a lab while I was at school. And I paid for it by having to spend about four or five nights in this lab, Sanji, at the height of the pandemic in 2021, largely because I felt that the only way we could meet the necessary actions to make us the most effective and efficient in what we were doing was to fully understand every aspect of the process, or as I like to tell you all the time, to deconstruct and reconstruct. And it is only when we understand that then that we can plot a way or a pathway, as I call it, to victory.
Today is an example of that pathway to victory. And I want to salute all who have been involved locally and internationally, but in particular the staff, because the pandemic showed us that with all the equipment in the world and with all the investment in the world, if our people did not have the character, the fortitude, the resilience, the capacity, all of this would have come to naught. And I have not taken it ever for granted, and hence our country’s expression of gratitude with respect to the national honors and with respect to the honorary that we paid out, because we believe that it was not sufficient only to say thank you.
Having said that, I will continue to argue that if we have to say thank you for each and every time over the course of the next century, let us do it, because we stand here today, strong as we are, not because of the efforts of any one entity, but because we came together in solidarity. And the solidarity was based foremost, yes, on investment, but foremost on character and resilience of our people. And without that, we would not be where we are today.
So congratulations, thank you very much, and I look forward to you reaching higher heights with respect to your research with the Living Lab and with respect to our partnership with the pharmaceutical industry. Thank you. Thank you.
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