PAHO Deployed Experts Ahead of Irma
Pan American Health Organization country offices in the Caribbean took preventive measures to provide the necessary support to authorities and a team of infrastructure, engineering, and administrative specialists was prepared to support the immediate assessment and response to the impact on people located in the path of hurricane Irma.
The Pan American Health Organization took action ahead of Hurricane Irma's impact on the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to have experts on the scene to assist victims of the hurricane.
Irma by Sept. 6 had passed over Barbuda, Saint Barthelemy, and Saint Martin as a category 5 hurricane and continued toward the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico the following day. PAHO reported initial damage and needs assessments were under way for countries and territories that have been impacted by the hurricane as it approached the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Turks and Caicos, Cuba, the Bahamas, and Florida.
PAHO country offices in the Caribbean took preventive measures to provide the necessary support to authorities and a team of infrastructure, engineering, and administrative specialists was prepared to support the immediate assessment and response to the impact on people located in the path of hurricane Irma. Four experts in infrastructure, sanitary engineering, and biomedical engineering were pre-deployed in the Bahamas, Antigua, and Turks and Caicos, and four experts would be sent after it passed to St. Kitts, Anguilla, Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands, according to the agency.