DOHA: The Supreme Council of Health (SCH) is conducting a mock drill today to check the readiness of the healthcare system to deal with a possible food poisoning outbreak in the country.
The exercise is part of a training programme on food poisoning which began at the SCH premises yesterday. The three-day workshop is being organised by the SCH in collaboration with the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and rmk, a private company providing consultation in food poisoning.
The mock drill will take place at the American School of Doha (ASD), Emergency Department at HMC and the laboratories at SCH. A hypothetical situation will be created in which a group of ASD students will fall victims to food poisoning. The scene will then shift to the Emergency Department and the laboratories where water and food tests will be conducted to identify the source of the poisoning.
“The scene has been set in a good way. The aim of the exercise is to assess the preparedness of all health departments concerned in dealing with a possible food poisoning outbreak and identify the weaknesses. This will help in formulating future plans and improving performance,” Wassan Al Baker, director of the Food Safety and Environmental Health Department at SCH said yesterday, on the sidelines of the workshop.
She said a school has been selected for the drill because it represents a mass gathering and children are more vulnerable to food poisoning. Some 20 experts and specialists from HMC, Communicable Diseases Control Department,Environmental Health Department, medical laboratory and food laboratory at SCH are attending the training programme. Dr Rafiq Al Khatib, managing director of rmk said that this was the first workshop of its kind organised by SCH in collaboration with the UAE-based company.
“The theory part of the workshop was conducted earlier and during this three-day training we are focusing on the practical side. The mock drill is part of the practical training,” Al Khatib told The Peninsula. He said the participants have been divided into different groups and each team will visit the different places covered by the mock drill. “Food poisoning outbreaks occur in Qatar very rarely, although there are individual incidents. The main causes behind food poisoning here are poor personal hygiene and improper handling of food,” said Al Khatib.
Dr Hamad Al Rumaihi, a senior official of the CDC said the department is participating in the training programme because it will help in dealing with diseases spreading through food. The mock drill will also help in assessing the preparedness of the health care system in dealing with a communicable disease outbreak.
A questionnaire will be distributed among students and teachers of the school as part of the drill to identify the source of the hypothetical food poisoning. The data collected through this questionnaire and the results of the mock laboratory tests will be analysed at the workshop on the last day. Based on this, the workshop will reach into a conclusion on the cause of the poisoning and come out with recommendations to deal with the situation.The Peninsula
