The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) in­tends to re­vive and re­vamp To­ba­go’s Tourism Health Pro­gramme (THP), as the world seeks to re­cov­er from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, and trav­el be­comes more nor­malised.

The To­ba­go’s THP, which was launched in 2016, is aligned with the Re­gion­al Tourism and Health/Trav­el­ers Health Pro­gram (THP) which is ex­e­cut­ed by the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA)—the Caribbean’s sole pub­lic health agency re­spon­si­ble for pre­vent­ing dis­ease, pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing health—in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (CHTA), the Caribbean Tourism Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CTO) and coun­tries in the re­gion.

Se­nior CARPHA of­fi­cials met this week with THA Sec­re­tary for Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, As­sem­bly­man Dr Faith B.Yis­rael and her team, to dis­cuss re­viv­ing To­ba­go’s THP.

A state­ment from the To­ba­go Health Di­vi­sion re­ports that over the com­ing weeks and months, there will be sev­er­al train­ing ses­sions con­duct­ed, which will pro­vide “the nec­es­sary ground­work to in­te­grate the THP in­to To­ba­go’s tourism and health strate­gies.”

Among the key com­po­nents of the THP are:

■   Tourism and Health In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem (THiS) – A web-based, ear­ly warn­ing and re­sponse mon­i­tor­ing and re­sponse sys­tem to con­fi­den­tial­ly cap­ture trav­ellers’ ill­ness­es in re­al time, with a built-in alert sys­tem to trig­ger a rapid and co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse, to re­duce ill­ness spread, as well as eco­nom­ic and rep­u­ta­tion­al neg­a­tive im­pacts.

■   Caribbean Ves­sel Sur­veil­lance Sys­tem (CVSS) – An elec­tron­ic sys­tem cre­at­ed to en­hance the mon­i­tor­ing and re­sponse to gas­troen­teri­tis and oth­er syn­dromes, COVID-19 and oth­er pub­lic health ill­ness­es on cruise ships and oth­er ves­sels. Re­al time alerts are sent to coun­tries if ill­ness thresh­olds are reached/passed be­fore the ship ar­rives to a coun­try.

■   Caribbean trav­ellers Health App – A mul­ti-faceted, nov­el, Caribbean trav­eller’s health in­for­ma­tion repos­i­to­ry de­signed for trav­ellers and health and tourism stake­hold­ers. It pro­vides trav­el health in­for­ma­tion by each Caribbean des­ti­na­tion (in­clud­ing vac­ci­na­tions, health care fa­cil­i­ties, ac­com­mo­da­tion list­ing).

■   Caribbean Trav­ellers Health As­sur­ances Stamp for Health­i­er Safer Tourism (HST) – A mea­sur­able and ver­i­fi­able trav­ellers health as­sur­ance and recog­ni­tion award for tourism en­ti­ties im­ple­ment­ing the rec­om­mend­ed proac­tive COVID-19 health mon­i­tor­ing and safe­ty mea­sures (train­ing, THiS, stan­dards). Fa­cil­i­ties award­ed the HST stamp are list­ed as pre­ferred health­i­er safer op­tions on the Caribbean Trav­eller's Health Mo­bile App and CARPHA, CTO and CHTA web­sites.

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To learn more about the THP, vis­it https://www.carpha.org/THP/Back­ground