Over the last three years, the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CAPRHA), the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), the Inter-American Institute (IAI), and the Global Health Resilience (GHR) group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center have been collaborating with the national health ministries and meteorological services of Barbados, Grenada and Saint Lucia to co-create bespoke climate-informed dengue early warning systems (EWS) in these three countries. By integrating Bayesian statistical prediction methods with seasonal climate forecasts, the team have developed probabilistic models to predict dengue outbreak risk in Barbados, Grenada and Saint Lucia up to 3 months in advance. A dedicated EWS platform has also been co-designed to visualise dengue risk predictions and support timely evidence-based public health action to mitigate or prevent epidemic occurrence. Full operationalisation of each national dengue EWS is scheduled to be completed in 2025, with ongoing monitoring and evaluating (M&E) being carried out in 2025 and 2026.

From 22 to 25 April, CARPHA hosted a regional four-day workshop in Bridgetown, Barbados, titled ‘Vector-Borne Disease Early Warning System Training and Development of the National Health Climate Bulletin’. The event convened over 50 participants from 13 Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) countries, including representatives from national health and meteorological agencies, regional institutions such as CARPHA and CIMH, and researchers from the BSC and IAI. 

The first two days of the workshop were dedicated to training personnel in using the EWS platform, interpreting dengue risk forecasts, and developing appropriate public health risk messaging and action planning to reduce epidemic risk in Barbados, Grenada and Saint Lucia. This first half was open to epidemiologists, entomologists, meteorologists and social scientists from the three CARIFORUM countries. The final two days focused on co-developing national health climate bulletins to improve public health preparedness in a changing climate, spanning a range of health outcomes including vector-borne, respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases. This second half was open to all CARIFORUM countries, of which 13 attended in total.

On day one, the GHR team led sessions on the scientific foundations and real-world value of climate-informed disease forecasting, the country-specific dengue prediction models, the EWS co-creation journey, hands-on training in navigating the EWS platform, interpreting dengue risk predictions, and preparing epidemiological and meteorological data inputs to operationalise the EWS. Furthermore, a foundational R programming session was delivered to support the preparation, quality assurance and harmonisation of multi-sourced data, with plans for continued training throughout 2025 and 2026. These training materials will be adapted for the HARMONIZE workshops taking place in 2025 and 2026 in Brazil and Peru. 

Day two focused on user feedback on the EWS platform, and M&E strategies in each country, where participants co-developed key performance indicators for qualitatively and quantitatively assessing the effectiveness of the EWS. A final group activity explored how to communicate outbreak risk and intervention strategies to the public under a variety of real-world scenarios. These sessions laid the groundwork for sustained system use and long-term impact.

Following the workshop, team members from GHR held technical discussions with key partners at the Barbados Ministry of Health and Wellness, and the Barbados Meteorological Service. The meetings aimed to advance and finalise plans to operationalise the dengue EWS in Barbados, including discussion on risk-specific public health messaging and interventions, multi-lead forecasting strategies, technical implementation and data pipelines, and integrating dengue risk forecasts into the national climate service products for the public. These conversations marked an important milestone on the path toward full implementation of the Barbados dengue EWS.

Collaborators from the BSC (Chloe Fletcher, Rachel Lowe, Raúl Capellan), CARPHA, CIMH and IAI during the training workshop