Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory

The Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory (T.R.V.L.) was established in Port of Spain, in 1953 by the Rockefeller Foundation in co-operation with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. It was originally housed in an old wooden army barracks near the docks in Port of Spain. A large wired-in "animal house" was built out back to house the many wild animals brought in for study.

The Virus lab's first Director was the renowned epidemiologist, Dr Wilbur Downs who served in that role until 1961. In that year the laboratory was moved to new buildings at Federation Park, Port of Spain and, in 1964, became part of the Department of Microbiology of the University of the West Indies under the direction of Dr Leslie Spence, who had been with the laboratory since 1954. It is now part of the Caribbean Epidemiology Center (Carec) in Port of Spain.

The laboratory was one of four tropical virus research laboratories sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation during the 1950s, including one in Brazil and two in Africa.

Under the inspired leadership of Dr Downs the laboratory began intensive research programs and made many new discoveries including the isolating of several arthropod-borne disease-causing viruses, and new insights into the epidemiology of key virus diseases including yellow fever, dengue fever, and rabies.

Downs headed a team of dedicated researchers including Dr. Charles R. Anderson (Virologist), Dr Leslie Spence (Epidemiologist), Dr Thomas Aitkens (Entomologist) and Dr Brooke Worth (Mammologist and Ornithologist). They worked very closely with other scientists in Trinidad, particularly those at the New York Zoological Society's research station headed by Dr William Beebe, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, the Trinidad and Tobago Health and Agriculture Departments, Arthur M. Greenhall, a world expert on vampire bats, and Dr A. E. Hill, a specialist in Tropical and Internal Diseases, with a particular interest in Dengue fever.

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