BAHA hosts emergency coordination seminar

For three days, employees of various government departments will be gathering at the George Price Centre in Belmopan to participate in an Incident Command Workshop. The event is hosted by the Belize Agricultural Health Authority. Dr. Victor Gongora is the Director of Animal Health at BAHA; he explains what the sessions are about.

Dr. Victor Gongora, Director of Animal Health
“Which is basically preparation for first responders, staff that would be out there in an emergency. In this case we are targeting BAHA, animal health and the BAHA staff, but also we are looking at Ministry of Health and NEMO because in an emergency we need coordination. For example, in animal health we have avian influenza which could cause a problem, but that’s also a human health issue, it becomes a national issue, so we need to coordinate among NEMO, animal health and BAHA. So it’s training for all these first responders in following a chain of command, in being organised in an emergency to manage the emergency and then leaving the technical stuff to specialized officers.”

John Roberts of J.E.R. Consulting is conducting the training, while the United States Department of Agriculture is sponsoring.