By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 1st May 2020) — Medical practitioner Dr. Terrance Drew is condemning a social media “fake story” on the recent antibody test kit sample donation to the Ministry of Health, labelling it another political attempt to undermine his ongoing interest in providing assistance in the fight against COVID-19 in St. Kitts-Nevis.
Dr. Drew views the attempts of mud-slinging at his character as being based on party politics, given his role as Chairman of the opposition St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) and as the candidate for Constituency Eight in the upcoming general elections.
He pointed to a fresh development out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines whereby the government is looking into carrying out antibody rapid testing using similar test kits to the nineteen (19) antibody rapid test kits he presented to the Ministry of Health on 26th March 2020 for evaluation — which were rejected by the St. Kitts-Nevis government.
Junior Minister of Health Senator Wendy Phipps had stated at the NEOC COVID-19 Daily Briefing on Saturday 4th April 2020: “We would have received a small donation from Dr. Terrance Drew in the amount of 19 test kits. Unfortunately the Ministry of Health cannot act on that donation because these test kits are written in Mandarin Chinese. The box is also in Chinese. We have no way of verifying the efficacy.”
Dr. Drew maintained that those test kits came from a company certified by CFDA (China Food and Drug Administration) and CE (Communauté Européenne), and that he “followed the established legal and scientific channels.” He also called for more robust testing in the Federation, stating: “The more people you test, the better. The more testing done will result in more information we will get in order to deal with this virus.”