In light of recent global health challenges and regional natural disasters, the importance of robust emergency preparedness and, outbreak detection and management in the region cannot be overstated. The COVID-19 pandemic and other multi-hazard emergencies highlighted the need for strategic plans focused on addressing known gaps within CARPHA and its Member States’ public health infrastructure for emergency preparedness and response.
Over a span of two weeks, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided technical support to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) in Health Emergencies Strategic and Operational Planning (HESOP); 7-1-7 outbreak management methodology; and preparation of a draft updated Strategic and operational health emergency plan.
During the period January 15-29th, 2024, the CDC’s Emergency Response Capacity Team of experts conducted train-the-trainer workshops, reviewed existing guiding documents, provided feedback and embarked on producing an initial draft of a Strategic and Operational Plan. The primary participants were from CARPHA’s Incident Management Team for Emergency and Response (IMT-ER). This team is CARPHA’s internal mechanism for an active, agency-wide approach to responding to health threats and emergencies.
“The technical corporation was also most timely, as the region prepares for thousands of arrivals from around the world for the ICC T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup being held in the Caribbean from May-June 2024,” said Dr. Lisa Indar, Director of Surveillance, Disease Prevention and Control at CARPHA. “This global event occurring both in the Caribbean and the USA, increases the risk of public health emergencies, necessitating the need for rapid and well-coordinated early detection and response.”
This train the trainer workshop aimed to strengthen capacity, enhance and document CARPHA’s overall coordinated public health emergency management and response to public health emergencies. By extension, the training supported CARPHA’s capacity to assist its Member States to develop/strengthen their health emergency strategic and operational plans. During the August 2023 Regional Health Security meeting, 50% of Member States indicated the absence of strategic and operational plans for health emergencies and requested technical support in the development of such capacity.
The HESOP workshop offered a comprehensive approach to strategic and operational planning in health, encompassing activities designed to provide a standardised process for strategic and operational planning related to health emergencies; Identify factors influencing strategic and operational planning, including threat and hazard analysis and stakeholder engagement; and reduce duplication of efforts by clarifying roles and responsibilities within public health establishments. The workshop also sought to promote cross-sectoral collaboration among stakeholders to support public health emergency management activities.
The 7-1-7 Outbreak Management train-the-trainers workshop focused especially on assessing and using the timeliness metrics contained in the 7-1-7 approach (7 days to detect a public health treat, 1 day to notify and 7 days to respond). The approach improves the ability to systematically review outbreaks, identify enablers and bottlenecks to timely detection and response, and to focus on the things needed to overcome the bottlenecks in response to future disease outbreaks.
CARPHA, as the lead regional public health agency is mandated to support its CMS in bolstering national systems and coordinating regional response to public health threats. Key lessons were learned, and gaps identified during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the area of emergency preparedness and response. As such, a review and update of current plans and guidelines was welcomed. The CDC experts reviewed all internal plans and guidelines, as well as available After-Action Reviews, and regional roadmaps to update the strategic and operational plan.
CARPHA will continue to work with the CDC to finalise its strategic and operational plan. More importantly the CARPHA team intends to share this invaluable learning experience with its CARPHA Member States on learned strategies for improving outbreak detection and response and work collaboratively with the CDC team in having strategic and operational planning workshops in our CARPHA Member States.
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