Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton’s insistence that the country’s inability to locally sequence samples of SARS-CoV-2 should not be of concern to Jamaicans has been described as “ignorance” by his Opposition counterpart.

While mutations are commonplace in how viruses spread, being able to track mutations locally helps governments to quickly decide how to impose lockdowns on a geographical basis rather than on a country-wide level. The data from genomic sequencing also show which variants are the main drivers helping countries determine which vaccine to roll out.

Dr Tufton, during a question-and-answer session in Parliament on July 13, had said there is a two-week lapse between when samples are sent abroad and when results are received.

Last Thursday, Jamaicans learnt that as of today they would be subjected to a seven-day no-movement regime on an intermittent schedule following a disclosure that the highly contagious Delta variant of the novel coronavirus, for which close to two dozen samples had tested positive, is contributing to the wave of cases and deaths being experienced by the country.

Responding to queries from the Jamaica Observer last week as to the status of efforts to acquire sequencing machines, the health minister said, “I really would want to discourage any sort of focus on the sequencing machine as a means of somehow stopping the Delta variant or, indeed, even treating with the Delta variant here as part of treating with the COVID threat.”

Added Dr Tufton: “The fact is that it’s here, and based on the results that we have had it’s safe to say that it is here in abundance. It may not be the dominant strain but it certainly is a popular enough strain to cause an added threat. The downside to that, based on the science, is that it spreads a lot quicker and it appears — by looking at other countries — to affect all age cohorts and could be so in severe ways, and so we have to be cautious and we have to recognise the threat that it represents.

“Having said that, vaccines continue to be effective based on what the science is showing against that particular strain and others. We are working on the machines, but now that we know it’s here we will continue to test at the three sites outside of Jamaica but, more importantly, what we need to do as a country is protect ourselves starting with the vaccines,” he added.

Dr Tufton, who said he was unable to provide any specifics on the plans for delivery of the machines, added that “the delivery timeline is not fully in our control, it’s a function of the manufacturers and in one instance the donor. Timelines are still fairly uncertain but I know it’s being worked on”.

As to how useful having the machines locally would be in helping to manage community spread, the health minister said, “I think that horse has bolted. I am being very frank. The community spread and the extent where we have found the origins of the strain — geographic origin, that is, in the respective parishes — the opening up of our borders, the expansion of tourism trade, travel by Diaspora, local people, we are an open society, the countries we are interacting with where the Delta strain is the dominant strain, it is very logical to assume that all of those factors would ensure that the strain is in our population in a way that requires more protocols and the vaccines to respond, as opposed to trying to identify it in a particular community or a particular town.”

He said that testing is important to manage and track spread of the virus, “but when you have community spread it is still relevant, but it requires other methods or measures”.

But Opposition spokesman on health Dr Morais Guy says the health minister’s understanding of the issue is sadly wanting.

“The minister is not a scientist, he is a social scientist, that’s ignorance. A genomic sequencing machine is not only for the Delta variant. We may find a variant that is in Jamaica known as the Jamaica variant or whatever, which might create other problems. So it is just short-sightedness on his part borne out of ignorance,” said Guy, who is a medical doctor.

“We know that Delta is not the only variant, it is the variant of concern now. The country needs to know from a scientific perspective what variants we have here and we need to know whether it is only Delta or any other variant.

“If you have that scientific data then you can plan appropriately; you can plan to see whether you are picking up another variant in a particular geographic area of the country and then you may put your plans in place to suitably cater,” he said.

Added Dr Guy: “Yes, we have Delta here and it is creating a problem, but it is not the be all and end all of all variants and may very well be that if you do genomic sequencing, as its the nature of viruses to mutate, you may have something coming out of Jamaica which is unique to Jamaica and which may have the potential to be even worse than Delta.

“So the answer is asinine. If you do it locally you have quicker results and then you can also interface with the international scientific community and say I have found this particular variant here.”

He pointed out that Jamaica’s Caribbean neighbours Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados already have their own genome sequencing machines.

Addressing Dr Tufton’s reference to the manufacturers of the machine, Dr Guy said, “I told the minister that you can buy genomic sequencing machines off the shelf. He is saying that the manufacturers have to build them based on specifications, and I told him that if he has been so advised by his technocrats that’s foolishness. You can buy genomic sequencing machines off the shelf, it does not have to be manufactured to specifications.”

In March this year, the Government had indicated that Jamaica is likely to have two genomic sequencing machines, stating that both were in the procurement process at different phases. One machine, the country was told, was being procured through the Ministry of Health and Wellness indirectly, with the assistance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which would also involve training of personnel, while the other machine was being supported by the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) fund and would go to the National Influenza Centre at The University of the West Indies.

Since then, however, Jamaica has been sending samples to the Pan American Health Organization’s labs in Brazil and Mexico, as well as the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and the CDC.

On Friday, the health and wellness ministry reported 794 new COVID-19 infections over 24 hours, pushing the case count to 61,282 since the first case was reported in March last year. There were 15 deaths over the 24 hours pushing the number of fatalities to 1,371. At the same time, 47,675 people have recovered from the disease.