Jamaicans travelling to countries with Tropical Race 4 (TR4) are advised to exercise caution in their movements to prevent the spread of the disease.

TR4 disease of banana or fusarium wilt is a deadly disease that affects both bananas and plantains. The disease is currently rampant in Venezuela and is soil-borne. It spread rapidly, and could potentially devastate the local banana sector if brought into the island.

General Manager of the Banana Board, Janet Conie, said in a previous interview with Jamaica Information Service (JIS) that TR4 is not in Jamaica, and it is “very important” to keep it out of the country.

She noted that while there is a national action plan to protect the banana industry, people need to be aware of what they can do to prevent TR4 from entering the island.

“Persons need to know that this disease exists in Venezuela, very close to Trinidad and can move. It moves on shoes, tools, clothing and in plant parts. While we are preparing ourselves, if we find it… to try and eliminate it as best as possible, the best method is prevention. How we prevent it is that people have to be aware so they don’t go into any banana fields anywhere overseas,” she said.

“If you should go, we are telling you don’t wear those shoes back to Jamaica. We don’t want any soil from those fields, should they have the disease, to come back to the country,” she emphasised.

Conie asks that persons visiting countries where TR4 is present not take plantain or heliconia plant parts back to Jamaica, “they might look very pretty but we don’t want it,” she noted.

The Banana Board is actively working to prevent the spread of the disease in Jamaica by enhancing the island’s diagnostics capabilities.

“Diagnostics is important because should the disease come, we want to be able to find it quickly. Surveillance does that; surveils of the field to detect if we have it. We have to be able to sample and diagnose that disease and that involves biotechnologies being capable of doing that in the lab,” she noted.

“We have to ensure that we have confirmatory labs overseas that can help us to confirm. These are the things that the scientists do behind the scenes to ensure that we can hit the ground running should that case ever come,” she told JIS in an interview.