JCF Takes On CHIKV

POLICE Commissioner Carl Williams led a team of senior offi­cers and oth­er mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in a clean-up of police sta­tions across the island on Wednesday, and has giv­en his com­mit­ment to ensur­ing that sta­tion com­pounds and police facil­i­ties are kept clean and free of mos­qui­to breed­ing sites. The com­mis­sion­er said the ini­tia­tive was rolled out in light of the increas­ing num­ber of chikun­gun­ya cas­es. “We want to ensure that we don’t do this for one day, but we do it on an ongo­ing basis,” said Williams. “We want­ed to ensure that the sta­tion com­pounds and all police facil­i­ties are free of the vec­tor that car­ries the chikun­gun­ya virus,” he con­tin­ued, adding that police sta­tions with major lock­ups were tar­get­ed. He made the com­ment as he led a team at the Half-Way-Tree Police Station, from where he went on to the Mobile Reserve. The police com­mis­sion­er said, men­while, that assess­ments have shown that there were no cas­es of pris­on­ers hav­ing symp­toms of chikun­gun­ya. There are, how­ev­er, cas­es of police­men and women infect­ed with the virus.

“At Half-Way- Tree, out of the 500 offi­cers only 25 were affect­ed,” said Williams. He said the major­i­ty of police per­son­nel affect­ed were based in east­ern parish­es. “Police force, the work­ers, the police offi­cers have been affect­ed but not to the extent where we are clos­ing down our oper­a­tions.” WIlliams said.