WHO SEARO’s Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) organized a Training Workshop on Strengthening of HEOC for WHO Cox’s Bazar staff on 7-11 October in New Delhi.
Health Emergency Operations Centres (HEOCs) play a crucial role in enabling countries to achieve the response capacity and capability required by International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR). With the on-going protracted emergency in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the WHO Emergency Sub-office in Cox’s Bazar has been providing technical and operational support to the Civil Surgeon of Cox’s Bazar District to ensure having a functional HEOC.
The training workshop covered the following topics
- Basic concepts of HEOCs
- Health emergency response functions
- WHE structure
- Incident Management System
- WHO Emergency Response Framework 2
- Coordination
- Developments on global and regional HEOCs
- Information management in response operations
- Communications, risk communication, public communication (social media, multimedia)
- Framework for HEOCs
- Simulation exercise
- Planning for CXB HEOC
At end of the training, the action plan for developing draft HEOC plan was discussed and dates for each activity was proposed.
Brief summary of recommendations
- Presentation of recommendations and plans to the Civil Surgeon of Cox’s Bazar
- Discussion on SOPs on the communication flow for response with CSO HEOC and National HEOC
- Support required to further strengthen operations of CSO-HEOC