Participants at an Advanced Course on Chemical Emergency Response in Costa Rica
The Second Advanced Regional Assistance-and-Protection Course on Chemical Emergency Response for States Parties in Latin America and the Caribbean was held from 3 to 7 August in San José, Costa Rica. The course was co-organised by the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW and the Costa Rican National Authority to the Chemical Weapons Convention, with the support of the National Fire fighter Acadaemy.
The course benefitted also from contributions made by instructors from Argentina, Guatemala and St, Kitts and Nevis under the Instructor Exchange Programme. Twenty Seven participants first responders from 15 States Parties in the Region attended the course*. The training was the second stage of an Assistance and Protection full training cycle designed for the GRULAC region that begun in Dominican Republic 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.
*Argentina, Barbados, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and St Kitts and Nevis.