Nairobi - The World Health Organization in partnership with the Kenyan Defence Forces organized and trained 30 multidisciplinary medical and paramedical officers as part of the establishment of Kenya’s first Emergency Medical Team (EMT) following WHO standards.

EMTs are health professionals that are now deployable within 72 hours to autonomously provide direct medical and surgical care to populations affected by disasters, outbreaks, and emergencies. They are deployed as a surge capacity to support the local health system, overwhelmed by a lack of human and material resources.   Civilian or military medical experts can be part of the team if they fulfill established standards to provide high-quality healthcare services to the affected population.

In the past decade, Kenya has experienced various Public Health Emergencies and disasters on a scale that often require coordinated national and sometimes international response. Flooding events, landslides, mudslides, gas explosions, terrorism and other infectious diseases such as cholera, measles, COVID-19 and influenzas occur frequently and often require the deployment of EMTs.

With the completion of this induction training today, the capacities of these officers have been built to take up the challenge of responding to the clinical component of any public health emergencies or disasters within the country and could also be deployed to support other countries within the continent. The training which lasted for 5 days featured, the overview of Public health emergencies, globally and in Kenya, typology of EMTs, building emergency medical teams, triage in emergency medical teams, management of mass casualty incidents, humanitarian setting management, EMT activation and deployments of human resources, kits and commodities, infection prevention and control.

An intensive simulation exercise was conducted to test the readiness of the teams for deployment in the event of emergencies. This was concluded with a full day engagement with all relevant high-level stakeholders to advocate for support to the EMT faculty in Kenya to achieve the required self-reliance.

During the closing ceremony, the World Health Organization Representative in Kenya, Dr Diallo Abdourahmane presented certificates and while congratulating the 30 officers who have been inducted into the national EMT, he emphasized that, "The newly acquired knowledge and skills would ensure prompt deployment and response to future acute emergencies in a manner that reduces the impact phase of emergencies and promote the shortest pathway to recovery. WHO would always assert its commitmentto the protection of population of member states from public health emergencies. I also want to congratulate the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Health for the foresight and courage to partner with the World Health organization to achieve this feat."

Some of the participants who expresed that the induction training had come at critical time when the government has repeatedly defered to clinical experts from the ministry of defence to support emergency response. "The induction training was very informative having a blend of lectures and simulation exercises in such critical areas like mass casualty incidents, logistics management in disaster response, infection prevention and control just to mention a few. lessons on triage in mass casualty was highly enlightening, creating the picture of who I can save first at the scene of mass casualty incident, using the triage model of sieve and sort, keeping in mind the categorization of patients as requiring immediate care, urgent care, delayed care and dead," said Sgt Odari George

"The training accommodated the needs of all the participants. An Emergency Medical Team (EMT) needs the active participation of all the cadres of the healthcare workers. As a medical officer and the team leader of an EMT, I learnt how to lead during triage at a mass casualty incident. I also learnt of the various logistics to carry along when activated. I also learnt how to manage stress of the team that I have deployed with, how to plan the layout of my EMT and lastly how to negotiate with the local administration of the area that I am deployed to,"  said Capt. (Dr) B.N Lunani

In her closing remarks, coordinator of the EMT induction training Col (Dr) Angela Githua expressed her gratitude to the WHO team. "I have learnt so much in this week of training and while the work ahead of us looks insurmountable, I am committed to seeing it through. we will work collaboratively with the WHO country office in Kenya to ensure the accreditation is achieved within the shortest possible time," she said.