EXPERTS from various sectors have been trained to deal with disease outbreaks and disasters.

The course has been conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with the Tanzania Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Ministry of Health.

Speaking at the closing of the training, the Resident Representative of WHO in Zabloni Yoti said that the training is important because in African countries there are 150 disasters per year and every four days there is an outbreak of Ebola in Gunea, Congo or Uganda, Marburg Kagera, cholera outbreak in Malawi and many other disasters.

He said, 70 percent of epidemic diseases that affect humans come from animals, so health security is a world priority and as a country, awareness needs to be built by involving all sectors.

He said it is good to protect citizens from emergencies and disasters because climate change also contributes to epidemics

"WHO we are providing this training, the aim is to save people's lives, every country must have a large team of experts, when an epidemic occurs, they can control it quickly, if right now there is a team that has come out from among the graduates here, they have gone to Kagera to control the outbreak of Marburg disease." He has said

He said that the group of 132 experts is included in the 'data base' of WHO and when disasters occur in any country, they are called at the same time to go to rescue.

And, the Director of Muhimbili National Hospital, Professor Mohamed Janabi who represented the Ministry of Health speaking said that the training has involved experts from different sectors including the Police, veterinarians, disaster experts from the Prime Minister's office, the White House, doctors, health workers and other government institutions.

"Not every disaster should only be health people on the front line, even people from different sectors, when a disaster emergency occurs anywhere, they should be on the front line to control it," said Janabi and added

"Just for example, while they were continuing with the training, there was an explosion in Kagera, some of those who came from here have gone with the Ministry's statement, we are told that the disease has been controlled to a large extent."

He has said

He said, the project aims to continue using the existing systems and efforts and further improve the preparedness to deal with emergencies and disasters.

The project known as "Flagship Initiative" will help the country to have the right system to deal with emergencies and disasters by strengthening the work plan of the ability to prepare, detect and deal with emergencies and disasters as well as arming oneself.