A closing ceremony, May 18, 2012, marked the end of the Burkina Faso Government Pandemic Disaster Response Tabletop Exercise following a week of relationship building, regional coordination, and problem solving.



Participants listened to speeches from General Director of the Civil Protection General Directorate, Colonel Lazare Yago, Special Assistant to the Commander of U.S. Africa Command, Brigadier General Stayce Harris, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy to Burkina Faso, Christopher R. Davis, and Minister of Territorial Administration, Decentralization and Security Remy Kabore.



Approximately 100 civilian and military representatives from seven African nations, the United States and three United Nation organizations took part in the exercise, during which they practiced responding to theoretical, yet realistic scenarios of a severe health related disaster.



"This exercise is a true reflection of the direction of U.S. AFRICOM's Pandemic Response Program by integrating the partner nations' representatives that have supported these types of events in the past as presenters and facilitators to assist Burkina Faso in stress testing their plan while benefiting from the combined experiences," said Leroy Harris, country engagement specialist for the Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine (CDHAM).



In this case, the hypothetical disaster was an illness with symptoms similar to influenza, that was first discovered in a rural Laotian village. Local geographic containment failed and within a few months the virus had spread throughout Asia, Africa and across the globe, with the death toll in the hundreds of thousands.



This type of disaster takes a severe financial toll as well. The World Bank estimated in 2006 that a severe pandemic could cost between 0.7 to 4.8% of the global gross domestic product, translating into trillions of dollars.



After a week of collaborating with his counterparts, health team leader, Dr. Yacouba Savadogo, said that what he learned will help improve his work as regional director of the Ministry of Health.



"This exercise clearly demonstrated the need for health to work closely with other disciplines," said Dr. Paul Michael Cox from the World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva. "Disease control and managing crisis is everybody's business."



The exercise was hosted by the government of Burkina Faso, organized by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine (CDHAM). The tabletop exercise will assist the government of Burkina Faso in assessing their pandemic disaster preparedness and response plan as well as identify and validate how the country's military can assist the civilian authorities in the "whole of government" pandemic disaster response.



The exercise was part of AFRICOM's Pandemic Response Program (PRP) and is funded by USAID as part of its umbrella program Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness Initiative. PRP's objectives are to train senior and mid-level military leaders, government agencies and international aide organizations in cooperative disaster management and humanitarian assistance situations with a particular focus on pandemic preparedness. It aims to ensure military, government agencies and international organizations in participating "pandemic preparedness" nations have developed detailed plans of action directly supporting national plans and to conduct exercises to stress test the implementation of these plans and identify opportunities to improve.



Other pandemic disaster response exercises have been conducted in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Benin and Senegal.



See also: Exercise Participants Begin Testing Burkina Faso's Pandemic Response Preparedness and Response Plans