During 2025 and early 2026, ISTC has organised a series of national consultation visits across Southeast Asia under the EU CBRN CoE Project 98 (EMED), which are part of the project’s overall objective of strengthening CBRN medical emergency preparedness and response in the region.

The Technical Implementation Team, led by  Team Leader Prof. Raquel Duarte-Davidson, together with P98 experts Dr. Ion Apostol, Dr. Giovanni Leonardi, and Dr. Matteo Pananini, and with support from Dr. Hendrik Visser, Ms. Diana Akhmetova, Mr. Auez Bertisbayev and Mr. Emmanuel Viatour (ISTC), engaged a broad range of national stakeholders during these missions — including Ministries of Health, emergency management authorities, hospitals, poison centres, radiation and nuclear authorities, academia, and frontline emergency services. In line with the project’s Phase 1 activities, the visits focused on assessing national capacities and priorities for CBRN medical emergency preparedness and response, while strengthening cooperation among health, emergency, and technical sectors.

Technical exchanges covered key domains highlighted in the project framework: scene management, prehospital medical care, hospital preparedness, emergencies at points of entry, and the role of field and environmental epidemiology, including links with Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP), in managing chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and environmental events affecting public health. These consultations help ensure that the train-the-trainer curricula and future capacity-building activities under Project 98 are aligned with national structures, priorities, and existing training ecosystems — supporting practical and operationally relevant impact.

These national consultations represent a major step in building regional coherence and shared understanding of CBRN medical response challenges. Their outcomes will feed directly into the upcoming Second Regional Meeting in Kuala Lumpur (4–6 February), where partner countries will come together to consolidate findings, exchange experiences, and shape the next phase of regional cooperation.

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