Review on Disasters and Appropriate Response of Health System to Them

Disasters are destructive events that necessitate a wide range of emergency resources to help and ensure the health and survival of the victim population. The types of disaster are natural disaster including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, floods, and man-made disasters such as war and terrorism. Over the past 20 years, natural disasters have affected at least 800 million people and caused over 3 million deaths. Poor engineering, improper safety practices, or simple human error can cause technological disasters. Many challenges that emergency responders potentially face are identification of the nature of the hazardous materials, evacuation of people after disasters, giving appropriate medical care for victims, and protecting emergency responders against dangers. Todays, the aims of disasters prevention are disaster planning, prevention, and mitigation. The medical and public health response to a disaster can be in "micro" (the level of patient care) or "macro" (the level of public and governmental authorities). Twenty-one medical and public health practices were considered important in disaster planning at the local level: medical needs assessment, health surveillance and epidemiology, identification of medical and health resources, medical transportation, patient distribution and evacuation, pre-hospital emergency services, hospital emergency services, in-hospital care, out-of-hospital care, temporary field treatment, food safety, management of hazardous agent exposure, mental health, medical and public health information, vector control, potable water, waste management, communicable disease control, animal control, coroner and mortuary services and finally care and shelter. Adequate knowledge and experience to respond effectively to medical emergencies during a disaster are essential.