In his opening speech, General Kien, who is also Chairman of the Board, underscored that so far, several countries in ASEAN have initially controlled the spread of the novel coronavirus. Nevertheless, amid the complicated development of the disease, there remains a risk of large-scale disease outbreak in some member states of the bloc.
He also asked the participants to contribute to drafting a plan for the exercise and finalizing the time to organize the event, based on the outcomes of the second meeting.
During the conference, ACMM’s Chief Secretary Major General Pramote Imwattana presented a draft of the plan. According to the plan, the exercise aims to learn from the experiences of military and medical forces in ASEAN member nations in the fight against COVID-19, to clarify coordination between the military and medical sectors, as well as other functional forces, to analyze shortcomings in the plan in response to the pandemic, and to build an action project to increase the preparedness of ASEAN’s military and medical forces in line with an anti-disease plan from the World Health Organization (WHO).
On the basis of the draft plan, ASEAN member countries will define the roles and responsibilities of their military and medical sectors in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, map out fields in which they could join hands, or cooperate with other organizations in response to the disease, and reach a consensus on a cooperation mechanism among the forces and other organizations in the fight against COVID-19.
After the discussion session, the participants approved the exercise plan which consists of three mock situations, including several active COVID-19 patients, a bunch of patients, and COVID-19 spread in the community detected in a country. For each scenario, they all discussed and approved a detailed action plan in the exercise.
Concluding the conference, members of the ACMM’s Board of Directors agreed upon expected plans during the exercise in order to submit to the ASEAN+ Deputy Defense Ministers' Meeting for approval. The exercise is scheduled to take place on May 27.
Translated by Minh Anh