Tsunami health lessons studied

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The lessons learned from last year’s Indian Ocean tsunami will be discussed at a conference in Thailand over the next three days organised by the WHO.

Participants will consider how responses worked and whether there might have been a better way to cope with the disaster.

It claimed 180,000 lives when the waves struck resorts and seaside villages nearly five months ago.

Fifty thousand people are still missing.

Among the questions that health authorities from countries affected by the tsunami will try to answer are: Why were so many women killed? How was disease contained? Could have been better co-ordination?

Long term care

The Thai government says it is satisfied that lives were saved by quick action from local medical teams.

But mental health officials say the government must continue to help survivors who have lost families and their livelihoods.

They say there is more to be done than promoting the tourism industry and rebuilding infrastructure.

There will also be an examination of how long it is taking to identify bodies, with some experts saying the forensics procedure was unnecessarily detailed - that jewellery and clothing should have played more of a part in discovering who the dead were.

The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes the conference will come up with a framework for co-operation so that if there is a next time, the health sector might be better prepared for a tsunami.

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