Avian Influenza and the Pandemic Threat

PREPARING REGIONAL LEADERS WITH THE KNOWLEDGE, TRAINING AND INSTRUMENTS FOR INFORMATION SHARING AND DECISION-MAKING AGAINST BIOLOGICAL THREATS AND PANDEMICS
PRELIMINARY SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME

The NATO - Advanced Study Institute will be held over 11 days.

The objective of the conference is preparing strong leaders, scientists and perspective decision makers with the contemporary knowledge to detect and contain pandemic disease threats in a synergistic forum to enhance global and local information sharing, collaboration, cooperation against pandemics and biological threats.

The focus of the conference is based on:
Preparedness against pandemic events
Biological threats
Disaster medicine under CBRN conditions
Dealing with terrorism attacks
Dealing with industrial CBRN emergencies
Improvement coordination of pre-hospital and hospital settings
Practical exercises and case-histories
New advances in science and technology for management of maxi-emergencies
Cooperation between civilian and military organizations

SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND

In emergency situations, life or death is often determined within the first few minutes of a crisis. The medical knowledge and expertise of first responders, coupled with a reliable emergency response infrastructure can make a critical difference when an unexpected illness, accident or wide-spread disaster occurs. The issues of dealing with CBRN-related incidents is put higher in the agenda in recent years. Expertise in this area is growing but scattered. From an international point of view, differences in approach are partly due to legal and organizational differences between countries. Sometimes differences may come from lessons learnt in incident.
Within the context of NATO-ASI project, it is widely accepted that sharing of expertise is an important step to improve the state-of-the-art knowledge and the approach of dealing with CBRN issues for all people involved in maxi-emergencies and mass-casualties events.

The event is organized in cooperation with
Associazione Nazionale Alpini – Italy
Corpo Militare EI-SMOM - Italy