Excellency, Honourable Kailesh Jagutpal, Minister of Health and Wellness

Mr Bhugun, Senior Chief Executive

Mrs Jhowry, Deputy Permanent Secretary

Dr Manraj, Director Central Laboratory Services

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to be with you today for the signature of the cost sharing agreement between the Government of Mauritius Ministry of Health and Wellness and the United Nations Development Programme for the expansion of the Laboratory Information Management System using the OpenELIS software.  

This collaboration started during the lockdown period and was facilitated by the UNDP Singapore Technology Centre. We are pleased that the services provided by the University of Washington, and UNDP Mauritius CO have been to the satisfaction of the Government of Mauritius.

I would like to thank the Government of Mauritius for the enormous trust which is being placed in UNDP to deliver this technical assistance which is critical to the socio-economic recovery of the country, in the face of the COVID pandemic. At a broader level, I would like to acknowledge and applaud the Ministry of Health and Wellness as well as the connected Ministries for the excellent work done in preventing COVID-19 from affecting the Mauritian population.

We, at UNDP, are pleased to be able to help in terms of ensuring the efficiency and viability of the laboratory services at a time when the capacity of the services is about to be seriously tested with the reopening of the Mauritian boundaries.

Allow me to also underscore and commend the specific efforts of Dr Manraj, Mr Mohabeer and Dr Gaud in pushing for the improvement in the capacity of the Laboratory Services and moving further into the digital era. UNDP is also pleased to have our staff Mrs Vichittra Purdassee on board, who has international experience as an IT project manager.

Before closing, I would like to mention that the support we have been providing has also been two-fold, firstly funded from UNDP core funds for the amount of US$ 500,000 , through which we will be procuring equipment and supplies for the benefit of the Government of Mauritius; and we have supported the construction of 1 Flu Clinic at Victoria Hospital. We have also recently secured additional funds in respect of the crisis response, and we intend to support the Ministry to purchase the computer servers US$ 150,000 for the Laboratory Information Management System Implementation. We look forward to a fruitful and efficient implementation.