CARPHA continues push medical tourism

By Sarah Lagan
Bermuda has received expert advice and technical assistance on the prevention and rapid
response to communicable diseases, food safety and health and safety in tourism.
Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) programme manager for regional tourism and
health, Dr Lisa Indar visited the Island to share her experience this week.
Dr Indar met with the Health Minister and Tourism Minister to discuss health and tourism
collaborations gathering momentum in the Caribbean region. Workshops were conducted with
health officers, the epidemiology and surveillance personnel and key stakeholders on the hotel
and cruise ship sectors.
“Given the importance of tourism in Bermuda’s economic recovery and preparations underway for evens such as the 2017 America’s Cup, thisis an important collaboration to reduce the risk that a public health event might otherwise have,” said Director of health, David Kendell.
CARPHA is working towards increased collaboration between health and tourism sectors to
address the link between the two. The organisation believes that one way of achieving this
would be to strengthen the existing national surveillance system through the addition of an
early warning and response mechanisms for travel related illnesses — establishing the
monitoring of illnesses among visitors in hotels and on cruise ships.
It is also calling for the development of an integrated database for clinical, food water and
tourism related illnesses and building capacity in food and environmental safety for food
service establishments in Bermuda.
Dr Indar reiterated CARPHA’s August 2014 statement on Bermuda’s beach water quality
which concluded that the sea/beach water quality results generated by the Department of Health
are reliable and that the bathing beaches of Bermuda meet the US EPA requirements for safe
recreational use. (CARPHA news)