The first Regional workshop for emergency preparedness and response for natural, accidental, and deliberate chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear events was conducted from 21-22 June 2022 with participation of Member States, partner organizations and WHO staff from all three levels of the Organization.
The meeting provided the opportunity for Member State participants to further understand potential public health threats due to CBRN hazards/events in the South-East Asia Region, the global and regional status on the level of preparedness for such events and build common understanding on strengthening health emergency preparedness and readiness for response operations for CBRN events in collaboration with relevant partners/ stakeholders. The participants also provided feedback on the self assessment tool to assess country level capacities to prepare and respond to CBRN events
The Member State participants, both from the Ministries of Health and National Disaster Management Authorities, were also able to understand the broad range of activities carried out both by WHO and relevant technical partners to scale-up CBRN preparedness and response capacities and discuss with domain experts on the implementation of such activities at national and subnational levels.
The meeting concluded with participants agreeing on the need to further the level of capacities for CBRN preparedness and response as well as the critical need to collaborate with partners beyond health and disaster management in this effort.