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.

Director of health, David Kendell said: “Given the importance of tourism in Bermuda’s economic recovery and preparations underway for events such as the 2017 America’s Cup, this is an important collaboration to reduce the risk that a public health event might otherwise have”.

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.

The latest seawater sampling programme results can be viewed at http://goo.gl/9SCakk