HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 19 (acn) Students at the Latin American Medical School (ELAM by its Spanish acronym) in Havana receive training focused on disaster mitigation, which includes several semesters with a subject planned to increase their knowledge on this topic.In statements to ACN, Dr. Luis Estruch, consultant teacher of the center, noted that hundreds of students have put into practice their knowledge in nations like Haiti when the earthquake occurred in 2010; in the dengue epidemic in El Salvador in 2002 as well as in Pakistan, Bolivia and other countries where difficult situations occurred.
This is an extremely important training, Estruch said, which has become in an example of what could be done in the world to prevent and mitigate the impact of hurricanes, earthquakes, epidemics and other disasters.
This experience of ELAM was presented to over 400 delegates from 29 countries participating in the 9th International Congress on Disasters, running at Havana Conventions Palace until Friday morning.
The exhibition marks the 15th anniversary of this higher education center, founded by the initiative of the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, after the scourge of hurricanes Mitch and George in the Caribbean, in 1998.
Estruch recalls that since then, the historic leader of Cuban Revolution thought in preparing humble and dispossessed youth from diverse nations of America, to save lives, to care for their people and mitigate the impact of environmental and hydro-meteorological events.
Currently, the students participate in all the dynamics related to Civil Defense, and the Student Health Brigades operate on summer holidays, stage where they spent two weeks to voluntarily work in their respective countries, in practices related to prevention in cases of volcanic eruptions, epidemics, fires and other disasters.
Our pupils finish their studies well prepared, the teacher told, and not infrequently they become the first doctors in their communities, popular leaders in disaster reduction.
