CARPHA to roll out early-warning covid system for tourism industry

In an effort to combat the spread of the coronavirus when the tourism and hospitality industry is reopened, the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) will set up a network to detect and monitor suspected covid19 cases.

Speaking at the Ministry of Health's covid19 update on Monday, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram said the Tourism and Health Programme (THP) is a web-based surveillance system consisting of hotels, guest houses and boat operators in TT which will record symptomatic cases and forward this information to the ministry.

Parasram said several hotels have already signed up for the programme and was confident it would strengthen local capacities by acting as an early-warning system to prevent widespread infection.

"If and when we open various sectors, we have that (programme) to fall back on.

"What it means is, those hotels that signed up for the THP programme now are able to detect cases and report these cases back to CARPHA electronically and that data comes to us, so it is a surveillance system that picks up cases early. So it gives us a bit of conficdence in the system for those places that have signed up."

Speaking on the implementation of the programme, assistant director of CARPHA Dr Lisa Indar said the system was the first of its kind and would rely on the vigilance of various tourism stakeholders to report any suspected cases of covid19 to her agency for follow-up.

"We are not asking them to be doctors, but it's really them reporting symptoms. Relevant people in the Ministry of Health will be able to know what is happening. It's a real-time flow of information, and it's important for us to to stop something before it spreads."

The programme, though co-ordineated by CARPHA, relies on the information on travellers' health from hospitals/health centres, accommodation, cruise ships, laboratories, media reports and international health and tourism agencies.