Participants at the Fourth Advanced Regional Assistance and Protection Course on Chemical Emergency Response for GRULAC States Parties held in Argentina.
The Fourth Advanced Regional Assistance and Protection Course on Chemical Emergency Response for States Parties in Latin America and the Caribbean was held from 20 to 25 April in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The course was co-organised by the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW and the Argentine National Authority to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the support of the Ministry of Security, namely the Cadet School of the Federal Police. The course benefitted also from contributions made by instructors from Costa Rica and Spain Thirty three participants first responders from 17 States Parties in the Region attended the course*.
The training relates to the offer made by Argentina in line with paragraph 7 of Article X of the CWC and was the second stage of an Assistance and Protection full training cycle designed for the GRULAC region that begun in Brazil last March for the same group of participants.
Different scenarios of growing complexity provided for advanced training of the participants on the proper use of individual and protective equipment which included SCBA, as well as containment, rescue and decontamination techniques. The course provided extensive training in the practice of the incident command system approach, aimed at the improvement of coordination and effectiveness of response during incidents with chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals.
The training also built on the continuous discussion and exchange of information and experiences that contributed to the strengthening of the team spirit of this new group of trainees.
*Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain and St Lucia.