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European Medical Corps

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The European Medical Corps (EMC) is an incident response team that was launched on 15 February 2016 by the European Union to provide an emergency response force to deal with outbreaks of epidemic disease anywhere in the world.[1] The EMC was formed after the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa when the WHO was criticized for a slow and insufficient response in the early stages of the Ebola outbreak.[2]

The EMC is part of the emergency response capacity of European countries.[3] Teams from nine EU member states—Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden — are available for deployment in an emergency. The EMC consist of medical teams, public health teams, mobile biosafety laboratories, medical evacuation capacities, experts in public health and medical assessment and coordination, and technical and logistics support.[4] Any country in need of assistance can make a request to Emergency Response Coordination Centre, part of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department.[5]

The first deployment of the EMC was announced by the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection on 12 May 2016, a response to the outbreak of yellow fever in Angola in 2016.[6] An earlier concept of an emergency medical response team was Task Force Scorpio formed by the United Nations during the first Gulf War.

References

  1. ^ "European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - EU launches new European Medical Corps to respond faster to emergencies". europa.eu. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  2. ^ Moon, Suerie; et al. (28 November 2015). "Will Ebola change the game? Ten essential reforms before the next pandemic. The report of the Harvard-LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola" (PDF). The Lancet. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00946-0. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  3. ^ "European Emergency Response Capacity - Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection - European Commission". Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  4. ^ "European Medical Corps part of the European Emergency Response Capacity" (PDF). Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  5. ^ "Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) - Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection - European Commission". Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  6. ^ "EU sends new medical corps team to Angola yellow fever outbreak". EurActiv.com. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  • [1]| Inauguration of the European Medical Corps
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