Cer­tain "tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions and ac­tions" be­ing tak­en by the Health Min­istry will be a pre­cur­sor to in­form­ing the min­istry's pol­i­cy po­si­tion and rec­om­men­da­tions to re­duce the ap­peal and use of e-cig­a­rettes and vapes.

This was in­di­cat­ed yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate by Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh. He was re­ply­ing to a ques­tion from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Suni­ty Ma­haraj, who sought an up­date on the progress made to­wards im­ple­ment­ing leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry pro­tec­tion for chil­dren against the health risks as­so­ci­at­ed with va­p­ing.

Deyals­ingh said va­p­ing was a rel­a­tive­ly new con­struct, on­ly in for­mal ex­is­tence since 2003, and many health ef­fects have been at­trib­ut­able to its use.

"There is a grow­ing body of sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence which is be­gin­ning to elu­ci­date the dele­te­ri­ous health ef­fects of va­p­ing, es­pe­cial­ly among chil­dren," he added.

Some of these in­clude, but are not lim­it­ed to, the fol­low­ing:

i. Va­p­ing can in­crease one’s risk of de­vel­op­ing asth­ma and oth­er lung dis­eases and may lead to lung scar­ring and or­gan dam­age;

ii. Va­p­ing is the gate­way to the in­creased use of cig­a­rettes, which car­ry in­her­ent known health risks;

iii. Va­p­ing can lead to pos­si­ble phys­i­cal in­juries, such as burns from ex­plo­sions or mal­func­tion dur­ing the use of the de­vice; and

iv. Some va­p­ing prod­ucts con­tain nico­tine, which car­ries all of the at­ten­dant risks, such as ad­dic­tion.

In this re­gard, Deyals­ingh said the min­istry, through its Na­tion­al and Drug Abuse Pre­ven­tion Pro­gramme (NADAPP) and To­bac­co Con­trol Unit, has de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed the fol­low­ing ini­tia­tives to in­crease aware­ness and re­duce the harm­ful risks as­so­ci­at­ed with va­p­ing among chil­dren and oth­er key pop­u­la­tions:

Train­ing by the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tari­at of the In­ter-Amer­i­can Drug Abuse Con­trol Com­mis­sion re­gion­al in the Uni­ver­sal Pre­ven­tion Cur­ricu­lum (UPC) Prac­ti­tion­ers Se­ries Pre­ven­tion in the Caribbean re­gion ( May 29 to June 5) in T&T.

* The UPC School-Based Pre­ven­tion Course is de­signed to build the skills, ca­pac­i­ty, and ex­per­tise of the sub­stance use pre­ven­tion work­force in the Caribbean by cre­at­ing a cadre of na­tion­al and re­gion­al UPC train­ers to im­ple­ment ev­i­dence-based drug use pre­ven­tion in­ter­ven­tions and prac­tices.

* Since Jan­u­ary 2023, as a pre­ven­tive ap­proach to va­p­ing among chil­dren and oth­er key pop­u­la­tions, the min­istry has con­duct­ed 12 health ed­u­ca­tion ses­sions at var­i­ous schools across T&T and sen­si­tised ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,200 stu­dents about the health risks, dan­gers, and al­ter­na­tives to e-cig­a­rettes and va­p­ing.

* The min­istry con­tin­ues com­mu­ni­ty out­reach ses­sions about the dan­gers of va­p­ing. Al­so, on the re­quest of part­ner agen­cies such as Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Min­istry, on March 5, con­duct­ed a lec­ture on Dan­gers of E-Cig­a­rettes/Va­p­ing at Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps for its Ch­agua­nas In­duc­tion Pro­gramme.

* Re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties fre­quent­ly con­duct ses­sions on e-cig­a­rettes and va­p­ing.

Deyals­ingh added, "These tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions and ac­tions will be a pre­cur­sor to in­form the Min­istry of Health’s pol­i­cy po­si­tion and rec­om­men­da­tions to re­duce the ap­peal and use of e-cig­a­rettes and vapes, there­by re­duc­ing the health risks as­so­ci­at­ed with va­p­ing among chil­dren and oth­er key pop­u­la­tions,"

Deyals­ingh al­so replied to UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark on mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed at re­gion­al health­care fa­cil­i­ties to en­sure vul­ner­a­ble groups can eas­i­ly ac­cess ur­gent care fol­low­ing un­healthy air qual­i­ty lev­els be­ing record­ed across T&T.

Deyals­ing said high lev­els of Sa­ha­ran dust may ex­ac­er­bate ill­ness in peo­ple with a high risk of res­pi­ra­to­ry com­pli­ca­tions, in­clud­ing those with pre-ex­ist­ing lung con­di­tions such as asth­ma, those with pre-ex­ist­ing heart dis­ease, the el­der­ly, and chil­dren.

"Our pub­lic health­care fa­cil­i­ties are equipped with the nec­es­sary staffing and med­ical de­vices, in­clu­sive of neb­u­liz­ers, ven­ti­la­tors, and pulse oxime­ters, and con­tin­ue to utilise the CTAS sys­tem for the pri­ori­ti­sa­tion and treat­ment of all pa­tients ex­pe­ri­enc­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es, name­ly asth­ma, al­ler­gies, res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions, and chron­ic ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­eases," he said.

"With­in the pub­lic health sec­tor, there are 1,217 neb­u­liz­er sta­tions, of which 1,008 are in hos­pi­tals; 70 are in dis­trict health fa­cil­i­ties; and 139 are in health cen­tres, which in­clude out­reach and en­hanced cen­tres."