Service & Resources

EvIDeNCe Portal

The EvIDeNCe Portal was created to support evidence-informed decision-making by target audiences, including Ministry of Health technical staff, CARPHA staff, and the regional health authority policy and planning staff. It is in line with the two key functions of CARPHA, which are providing strategic direction in responding to public health priorities, and assisting countries with research, policy development and evaluation.

The portal will build on existing resources and act as a continually updated repository of clinical health, population health and health systems research (excluding basic/biomedical research). It will also include policy-relevant documents from CARPHA, its Member States and the WHO, and syntheses.

Laboratory Testing

Surveillance

Numerous surveillance systems are in place at CARPHA. Surveillance conducted within the Caribbean Region includes:

• 1. Syndromic surveillance,
• 2. Vector-borne surveillance,
• 3.  Food-borne surveillance,
• 4. Tourism-based surveillance through THIS,
• 5. Pharmacovigilance,
• 6. Non-communicable diseases and its risk factors,
• 7. Cancer Registries.

This monitoring of diseases and resulting evaluation of data allows the HCE Department to provide early warning of potential public health threats to CARPHA Member States (CMS). CARPHA also provides publications of the data as feedback to CMS to guide public health decision making.

Tourism and Health Information System (THiS)

THiS is a real-time web-based application for facilities housing stay over arrival (eg. Hotels) to monitor the health of guests and staff. In turn, public health officials can identify events before the outbreak begins. Key features include it being self-reporting and an easy-to-use online tool, that allows collection of data that otherwise would have gone unreported.

VigiCarib

VigiCarib was launched on December 2017 as an online, voluntary regional portal for CARICOM states to report adverse effects related to medicines, and substandard or falsified products. The rationale is that a regional approach allows for pooling of information, and thus a larger data set than would be available at a national level. The CRS (Caribbean Regulatory System) can then make recommendations to CARICOM states about problematic products and regulatory actions.

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