• PAHO Response Team members ready to deploy, using face masks and wearing blue vests and caps

Health Emergencies and Disaster Response

 

The Latin American and Caribbean Region is exposed to a wide variety of health emergencies and disasters (natural, man-made, biological, chemical, radiological and others) of increasing scale and frequency, which affect the Region each year. These events significantly impact populations' health and constitute a major challenge for Latin American and Caribbean countries in protecting their people’s well-being. 

When national capacities are overwhelmed, PAHO supports countries to lead and coordinate the international health response to contain disasters, including outbreaks, and to provide effective relief and recovery to affected populations.

PAHO’s Response to Emergencies and Disasters is based on the incident management model. This model describes the particular way in which an organization and its various components should operate during an emergency situation and how an organization’s emergency procedures should be adapted in order to mitigate the incident’s impact to save lives.

Additionally, the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) coordinates the Organization’s overall response and information, connecting all points of operations to ensure that the response to an emergency or disaster is timely and effective. The EOC is the center of operations for the entire Organization, regardless of the location or the nature of the emergency or disaster. At all times, the EOC attends to its permanently assigned tasks, a responsibility it continues to hold, to the extent possible, during crisis.

 

PAHO Response to Active Emergencies

Disasters
Wildfires

Recently, much of South America has experienced drier than usual conditions, with unusually high temperatures and a marked decrease in precipitation. Drought has been widespread in Brazil and adjacent countries to the north, west and south, as well as in the northern half of Argentina and Chile causing a profound impact on agriculture, water resources and biodiversity. In particular, the Pantanal of Brazil has suffered intensely due to the reduction of water, exacerbating forest fires.

Situation Reports

Events under monitoring

Access daily updates on natural hazards in the Americas, including wildfires, floods, droughts, hurricanes, heatwaves, and other extreme meteorological events.

NATURAL HAZARDS MONITORING

Explore the Region of the Americas' public health signals and events being monitored to view data on select events, by type of hazard (infection, zoonosis, disaster, other) and location. 

PUBLIC HEALTH EVENTS DASHBOARD

PAHO Response to Past Emergencies

Highlight response to recent emergencies
Past Major Emergencies Response

What PAHO Does

 

 

 

Provide technical cooperation in health and advise health authorities on immediate actions.

 

Activate and mobilize institutional response mechanisms. 

 

Support Member States in assessing the health situation after disasters and the potential risks to public health.

 

Support the coordination and mobilization of public health experts to assist response operations.

 

Gather and disseminate public health information in a timely manner. 

 

 

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