Barbados is one of three regional destinations involved in a pilot project aimed at strengthening and implementing early warning systems to enhance regional and national health safety efforts.The initiative is being carried out under the Regional Tourism Health Capacity Enhancement and Digitisation project and includes specific capabilities for instituting, tracing and monitoring health-related information in the tourism sector to quickly catch health threats and respond quickly.This was revealed on Wednesday during a health and wellness in tourism forum, as one Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) official pointed out that sometimes tourism industry operators were reluctant to raise an alarm over a viral illness among travellers.CARPHA’s Director of the Surveillance, Disease Prevention and Control Division Dr Lisa Indar recalled a norovirus outbreak in a tourism-dependent destination several years ago, which started with a child who travelled with his parents and stayed at an all-inclusive facility where the virus spread.“Of course, the general norm is for the accommodation not to report this. They would have tried to deal with it, but then within two days it went up to 300 cases and by the end of the week it was 800 cases and it was extended to other hotels in the country. The Ministry of Health was alerted when it had almost reached 500 cases,” she recalled.She said it was against this background that CARPHA was keen on helping regional destinations develop systems that were able to allow for a healthier and safer tourism product, as she pointed to some of the systems already in place.