Assessment of drought resilience of hospitals in Sri Lanka: a cross-sectional survey.

Background: Drought is an extreme weather event. Drought-related health effects can increase demands on hospitals while restricting their functional capacity. In July 2017, Sri Lanka had been experiencing prolonged drought for around a year and data on the resilience of hospitals were required.

Building operational readiness for responding to emergencies in the WHO South-East Asia Region.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has an essential role to play in supporting Member States to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies with public health consequences. Operational readiness for known and unknown hazards and emergencies requires a risk-informed and structured approach to building capacities within organizations such as WHO offices and national ministries of health. Under the flagship priority programme on emergency risk management of the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, a readiness training programme consisting of four modules was implemented during 2017-2018, involving staff from WHO country offices as well as from the regional office.