Stages of medical rescue after disaster based on clinical features and their significance / 中华急诊医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To define the stages of medical rescue after earthquake or tsunami disaster and their significance.Method Three stages of medical rescue were defined according to the clinical features of diseases in 3-37 days after earthquake or tsunami in Pakistan and Indonesia.The classification of diseases was based on the criteria of disaster medical rescue set by World Health Organization.Five diseases including injuries/wounds,acute upper respiratory tract infection,acute hemorrhagic enterocolitis,acute enterecolitis and other diseases of internal medicine except epidemic or suspected epidemic diseases were employed to define the stages of disaster medical rescue.Results Injuries/wounds mainly occurred in 6 days after disaster.The incidences were 61.45% to 79.52% and 61.48% to 72.35% in Pakistan and Indonesia,respectively.The incidence of acute upper respiratory tract infection reached to a considerably high rate one week after disaster.Other diseases usually appeared one week later with incidence of 33.93% to 71.11% and 31.50% to 52.11% in Pakistan and Indonesia,respectively.The rate of acute hemorrhagic enterocolitis was 2%o in Indonesia whereas 35‰of acute enterocolitis was found in Pakistan.Conclusion Three stages of disaster medical rescue could be well defined.(1)Early or critical stage(in 6 days after disaster)Treatment of injuries/wound and resuscitation was the primary step to deal with.(2)Intermediate of subaeute stage(7-30days following disaster)The incidences of various kinds of diseases increased and more medical resources were needed in order to treat the upper respiratory tract infection and to lower the disable rate,and to prevent the prevalence of epidemic diseases.(3)Later or recovery stage(1-3months after disaster)The general condition of victims became even better than that of those affected by commonly occurred local diseases,and during this period,there were shortages of medical facilities and medical personnel.Therefore,supplement of medical resources was required.The well defined stages of medical rescue have an important significance for medical rescue teams to treat victims and prevent epidemic diseases more efficiently and timely,and also provide a guidance of scientific basis for the logistics officers of local government as well as our government to make a proper and reasonable distribution of medical resources,and dispatch and arrangement of medical rescue teams.This guidance also helps to make victims re- reliant.