Regional Rapid-Response Team Formed

The Regional Disaster Response Team includes experts in epidemiology, water and sanitation, environmental health, logistics, procurement and administration, damage evaluation for hospitals, mental health, and communication. Members are drawn from a roster of about 40 experts, including staff from PAHO, ministries of health, and other national and international agencies.

The team will coordinate, in cooperation with national authorities, all health-related relief efforts during large-scale disasters. This includes establishing emergency operations centers, assessing health needs to inform international assistance, and providing technical advice on post-disaster health issues. The team will also oversee the collection, analysis, and management of postdisaster information.

The new team is modeled on a similar Caribbean rapid-response team that has existed for more than a decade. "We saw the need for a new, expanded team after the extremely active Atlantic hurricane seasons of the last two years," explains Dana Van Alphen, PAHO advisor on emergency preparedness. “We plan to expand it further to include South America later this year."

Earlier this year, 35 disaster and health experts from 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean met in San José, Costa Rica, to review the team's standard operating procedures and to define individual and cross-cutting responsibilities. Participants carried out a field exercise to validate a PAHO methodology for rapid assessment of health needs in the aftermath of disasters.

A similar meeting is being planned for later this year in South America to recruit additional experts from there. PAHO is also developing a special team to provide rapid response in case of an influenza pandemic, with members whose expertise is primarily in disease surveillance.