The Ministry of Health & Wellness has ordered several measures put in place to cauterise the transmission of COVID-19 at the Faith Centre Catholic charity, after it identified a major cluster of COVID-19 cases at the facility run by Missionaries of the Poor.

Seventy-four positive cases have been identified from 125 persons sampled at the Faith Centre, which has been offering care to Jamaicans in need since the 1980s. Six of the positive cases are staff members and five results were pending.

The ministry said it has since engaged the Missionaries of the Poor to put in place a range of measures to slow transmission at the facility. These measures include:

• adhering to the previous recommendation of no-one in and no one out;
• continuing restriction of movement between residences and the ministries;
• strict adherence to the no visitors policy;
• cohorting as much as possible;
• having dedicated staff and equipment for the different clusters at the facility;
• ensuring adequate supply of personal protective equipment; and
• the wearing of masks by staff and residents at all times.

Also, staff are not to attend work if they have any symptom of illness while current in-house staff will remain resident for another two weeks at a minimum. Further:

• meals will be served in disposable containers;
• residents with comorbidities will be monitored daily; and
• movement within clusters is now restricted.

The ministry said testing was ongoing at other facilities run by Missionaries of the Poor and a full report will be made available to the public as soon as that process is finalised.

The cases come just weeks after after another cluster was located at the Golden Age Home in Kingston, where 87 positive cases were found among 620 residents and staff members tested over a three-day period. Up to last Wednesday all the positive cases were stable and asymptomatic, except for the first case, which had a resulted in a fatality.

“It remains vital that the people of Jamaica perform the various infection prevention and control measures. At no time should we become complacent as our national efforts continue to contain the spread of the virus,” said Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton in a release yesterday.

“We must always wear our masks. We must frequently wash our hands. We must keep our physical distance from others.”