The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) is working to improve epidemic and pandemic preparedness in Bangladesh through the Programmatic Partnership, with technical support from Danish Red Cross and IFRC.
Through the programme, trained BDRCS volunteer teams are implementing community-based surveillance, conducting health and hygiene promotion, and running other epidemic prevention activities to keep communities health and safe from infectious diseases.
They do so in close partnership with local and national health authorities in Bangladesh, teaming up with government Rapid Response Teams--trained teams of medical personnel that can be deployed during any public health event--who respond when a disease outbreak is detected.
RRTs are typically well-placed to respond to outbreaks in rural areas of the country. But, historically, training and resources have been lacking within urban areas. So from 22-24 April 2025, BDRCS teamed up with the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control And Research (IEDCR) to run a bespoke epidemic preparedness and response training for Rapid Response Teams at the City Corporation level in Gazipur, Bangladesh.
The training was designed to support these teams to respond effectively to health emergencies, improve coordination among public health stakeholders, ensure timely and evidence-based interventions in emergency situations and familiarize them with national and international health emergency response protocols for outbreak investigation, infection, prevention and control (IPC) management, and One Health coordination.
With strong advocacy from BDRCS, IEDCR is now committed to include City Corporation Health team in future RRT trainings. The whole event showcased BDRCS’s strong coordination and advocacy for epidemic preparedness for urban areas of Bangladesh, and will make sure that CBS alerts raised within urban areas of the country are responded to in a more timely, joined up and efficient manner.