Not only Ebola virus but also hemorrhagic fever, tuberculosis, Dengue fever and Monkeypox fever. There are several cases of highly infectious disease that require air transport in bio-containment. Operations of this type can save lives but the procedures are not simple and require exercises and training.
For this reason the Air Force, an excellence in bio-containment transport in the entire international scene, participated, in Romania, in the largest health exercise in NATO, the Vigorous Warrior 2019. Over 2000 soldiers from more than 30 different nations: these are the numbers of the training event coordinated by the NATO Center of Excellence for Military Medicine in Budapest, which involved specialized health assets and land, air and naval rescue vehicles from different nations. The exercise was aimed at developing health support capabilities for military operations, both within NATO and the EU, including the response to possible epidemics or biological contamination in civil and military contexts. Among the main objectives of Italy, which participated in the training event with the staff of theGeneral Inspectorate of Military Health (IGESAN) and the Health Services of the Armed Forces, the acquisition of the necessary organizational expertise to be able to host the 2021 edition of the exercise.
It is precisely in the context of the Vigorous Warrior that the health exercise that simulated the transport in bio-containment of a soldier affected by a highly infectious disease during an operation abroad is framed. The demonstration included the coordination and planning phases of the mission, carried out by the Main Infirmary of Pratica di Mare as N-PECC (National Patient Evacuation and Coordination Center) for the EATC (European Air Transport Command). A C-130J of the 46 ^ Air Brigade of Pisa took off from the military airport of Pratica di Mare carrying an Air Force team specialized in bio-containment and reached the Romanian air base of Campia Turzii, where it took off I load the patient from an equivalent English unit, for the subsequent return to Italy and hospitalization at the Spallanzani Hospital in Rome, one of the national reference centers for this type of emergency. For the first time, as part of an international exercise, the capacity for cooperation between military medical teams from different nations with a civilian health facility was tested simultaneously.
Such interventions are not aimed at military personnel only. The first real case of bio-containment transport dates back to 2006, in favor of a patient suffering from multi-resistant tuberculosis, followed by numerous other transports. The latest in terms of time involved two Emergency medical workers, both affected by the Ebola virus during their stay in Sierra Leone for a humanitarian mission.
The Italian Air Force, thanks to the experience gained in the sector starting from the 2005 and the special insulation stretchers supplied, is today among the leading international air forces in the field of high-bio-containment air transport. Exercises like the Vigorous Warrior they are important training opportunities to continue to guarantee the success of such complex operations.
