About the Trinidad Public Health Laboratory
The Trinidad and Tobago Public Health Laboratory is in the business of providing diagnostic and supportive services and the surveillance of Communicable Diseases in a prompt and efficient manner in order to improve the health status of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

Role of the Public Health Laboratory
As an important arm of the Ministry’s Public Health Service, the Trinidad Public Health Laboratory with its associated National Surveillance Unit is soley responsible for the following functions:

1. Providing diagnostic laboratory support for both the community Health Services and the hospitals in such specialized disciplines as Virology, and for infectious diseases, for example, Tuberculosis and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Such support is invariably extended to the private health sector.
    

2. Conducting national surveillance and other relevant epidemiological activities exclusively in the area of communicable diseases. These functions are undertaken by the National Surveillance Unit.
    

3. Providing diagnostic laboratory services as an essential adjunct to national surveillance activities, particularly in the area of epidemic investigation.
    

4. Conducting laboratory-based surveillance activities to enable the early detection of newly introduced disease causing organisms into the population.
    

5. Providing laboratory backup support for the Public Health Inspectorate in the monitoring of food and water quality in Trinidad and Tobago. This area of responsibility includes the retail food establishment and no commercial food samples such as the School Feeding Programme, Public Institutions.
    

6. Providing laboratory and epidemiologic support through the conduct of seroprevalence studies in the areas of Vaccine Preventable and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
    

7. Conducting research as may be relevant and appropriate for elucidating health problems in the area of communicable diseases.