The Centro de Coordinación de Alertas y Emergencias Sanitarias (CCAES), an organization headed by the physician and epidemiologist Fernando Simónis one of the agencies that form part of the Public Health response coordination group created by the Ministry of Health. One of its objectives is to prevent infectious outbreaks to minimize risks from stagnant water in areas affected by the DANA.
The decision was announced last Monday by the Minister of Health, Mónica Garcíain a message published in her X account. In this statement, she also assured that, despite some hoaxes that are circulating in social networks, the Conselleria had not detected any outbreak so far due to the floods caused by the storm. “But the danger is there and we are working to prevent it,” García said.
According to the head of Healththe priority is minimize risks because standing water “can be dangerous”. For this reason, a decision was taken to strengthen warning and response systems and to update protocols and instructions to “intensify detection, sampling, identification and monitoring”.
In order to meet the objective, García has sent María José Sierra, a physician specialized in preventive medicine, public health and epidemiology. Currently, she is the head of the Center for Coordination of Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES) since its director, Fernando Simón, is on leave, as reported by La Razón.
“We do not let our guard down and we are redoubling our efforts to act before more time has passed since the beginning of the exposure,” stressed the minister, who assured that work is being done “on all fronts to protect those who need it most: victims, affected people and volunteers“.
In addition to physicians and epidemiologists from the Center for Coordination of Alerts and Health Emergencies (CCAES), led by Sierra, also working on the field are experts from the Directorate General of Public Health of the Generalitat Valencianathe General Directorate of Public Health of the Ministry of Health, the Spanish Medicines Agency and the Carlos III Health Institute.