The multisectoral U.N. Maldives Health Cluster Workshop on disaster prevention and preparedness workshop titled “U.N. Maldives Health Cluster Workshop” was held at Champa Central Hotel and was organised by Health Protection Agency (HPA) of Ministry of Health and World Health Organization (WHO). The workshop brought together health sector workers and stakeholders from other relevant authorities to discuss ways in which they could work together to prepare for health risks during disasters, prevent and reduce risk of health related issues during disasters.
Deliberations during the workshop focused on multisectoral approaches for handling health related emergency situations during disasters, which would enable all authorities to work together to prevent diseases outbreak and such issues. These include ways in tackling and preventing disease outbreaks during flooding and storms and other such natural disasters.
Speaking at the closing of the workshop, Minister of Health Abdulla Nazim stated that disaster preparedness is imperative to ensure damage control faced by residents.
WHO Country Representative to the Maldives Dr. Arvind Mathur stated that such workshops would enable relevant authorities to implement existing frameworks and assist further coordination amongst different authorities.
The one day workshop was attended by policy level officials from different government authorities and non-governmental organisations.