On September 25, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Medical Center (NMC) of the Republic of Korea signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) at WHO's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to strengthen their collaboration on public health emergency response and to enhance their continuous and close working relationships.
Both parties attended the signing ceremony, including Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, and NMC President Ju Young-su.
The preliminary themes of the collaboration include (a) medical response, prevention and management of emerging and major infectious diseases, (b) cooperation on establishing an international disaster and trauma medical support system, and (c) collaboration among experts, education, and training opportunities, sharing healthcare information and data, and collaborative research to strengthen response capabilities to public health emergencies.
Through the MoU, WHO and NMC expect to form a long-term collaboration.
The NMC is part of a multi-agency collaboration contributing to the development of the Korean Disasters Relief Team, which became the 35th Emergency Medical Team (EMT) to be classified as per WHO standards for Type 1 fixed EMT in 2022. In November 2023, NMC joined WHO's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) as a partner institution.
