Editorial
E-learning: Value Added or a Fad?

In the last several years, many disaster management e-learning initiatives have been trumpeted as the alternative to costly international courses directed to an elite. Donors, eager to ride the “dotcom” wave, generously funded these projects. Today, most have quietly faded away. A few e-courses are struggling to find paying students to meet their costs, but residential courses, a breed thought to be marked for extinction with the advent of e-learning, are more numerous than ever! PAHO is still looking whether or not e-learning has real value added for the disaster management community, but our limited experience has taught us a few things. (More)

PAHO Directing Council Passes Resolution Urging Safe Hospitals

The devastation caused by Hurricanes Frances, Ivan and Jeanne was fresh on the minds of the Ministers of Health of the Americas when they met at PAHO’s 45th Directing Council Meeting in late September and called for safe hospitals. (More)

Disaster Advisers Take up New Posts in Latin America

PAHO has reassigned staff responsible for its country operations in Central and South America to its subregional disaster offices in Ecuador (which covers the Spanish-speaking countries of South America and Brazil) and Costa Rica (covering the six Spanish-speaking countries in Central America). (More)

Country-level use of Sphere Standards

In Honduras, a working group launched the Spanish edition of the 2004 Sphere handbook. More than 50 people attended the event, including donors, NGOs and government officials. (More)

World Bank Publishes Case Study on Honduras Disaster Recovery

“Learning Lessons from Disaster Recovery: The Case of Honduras” is the title of a new release in the World Bank Disaster Risk Management Working Paper Series. (More)

New CRID Info Kits

CRID has just added two “minikits” to its new series of information packets (refer to the previous issue to see what these information tools are all about). The subjects chosen this time are risk mapping and community participation. (More)

Hurricane Season 2004

In May 2004, the U.S. National Hurricane Center called for a 50% probability of an above-normal hurricane season. Several of these storms battered the Caribbean and parts of the U.S, leaving a wake of devastation. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne proved to be most deadly, reminding us that disaster preparedness efforts cannot cease. (More)

International Migration, Health and Human Rights

This publication provides an overview of some of the key challenges for policy-makers in addressing the linkages between migration, health and human rights. It attempts to provide a useful platform to stimulate action to address migration and health in a comprehensive and human rights-sensitive way. (More)

Management of Dead Bodies in Disaster Situations

The new and widely-requested English version of this publication is now available. The proper management of dead bodies is very important to the survivors of emergency and disaster situations. (More)

Selected Bibliography

The articles listed in this section may be of interest to health professionals and others responsible for disaster preparedness, mitigation and relief. (More)

Survey on PAHO DIsaster Publications

Several months ago, PAHO conducted a survey of satisfaction with its print and multimedia disaster publications and training materials. As a preview, respondents told us that they considered our web page and the Disasters newsletter our most useful and best known information sources. The complete survey results in the next issue of this newsletter.