Doc. AIDHM: AIDHM Team during the closing ceremony of the drill has received the token of appreciation as supported of the drill
Since the launch of the ARCH Project, the Regional Collaboration Drill (RCD) has become a flagship activity aimed at enhancing joint emergency response capabilities among ASEAN Member States (AMS). The RCD simulates a large scale disaster scenario in which of host country formally requests international medical assistance. In this context, the AMS respond by deploying their respective International Emergency Medical Teams (I-EMTs) to support the affected country. This four day exercise combines scenario based simulations with practical field drills, including real situation medical response operations. Through the RCD, ASEAN Member States continue to build more resilient health emergency response system.
As part of ongoing efforts to enhance regional disaster preparedness and health emergency response, ASEAN has successfully implemented five RCD since 2017. These exercises have been hosted by Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
The RCDs are designed to serve multiple strategic purposes such as validate documents and tools that have been developed for the regional coordination, evaluate the host country’s disaster management strategies, guidelines and protocols to ensure their effectiveness and recommend improvement measures that can be taken, as well as strengthening the cooperation of Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) of AMS. In a demonstration of continued leadership, Thailand formally submitted a letter of intent on 27 June 2024 to host the 6th RCD. The 6th RCD aims to achieve the following key objectives:
- To evaluate the host country’s capacity for receiving International Emergency Medical Teams (I-EMTs) during emergencies for humanitarian health needs.
- To assess the data management, analysis, and reporting capabilities of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for coordination of emergency medical teams (EMTs) in ASEAN and associated documents.
- To promote inter-agency collaboration through joint exercises with health and non-health organizations.
- To strengthen the AHA Centre’s mechanism and enhance ASEAN Member States (AMS) Capacity to achieve goals outlined in the Plan of Action for the implementation of the ASEAN Leaders Declaration on Disaster Health Management.
- To finalize and disseminate products and updates developed by the ARCH Project (Comprehensive Team Information: CTI) Materials, C-Course Curriculum, Mentor Reports, and Preparation Guidebooks).