Heads of the military medical services of the CSTO Member States’ armed forces discussed the issues of medical support of the Organization’s Collective Forces

On November 11, 2020, the CSTO Crisis Response Centre hosted a research-to-practice conference Current Issues of Medical Support of the CSTO Troops (Collective Forces) in Joint Operations for military medical services of the CSTO Member States’ defence departments. The event was held remotely using videoconferencing.

Participants included heads of medical services of the defence departments and chief military medical professionals of the CSTO Member States and representatives of the Kirov Military Medical Academy of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.

Conference participants paid particular attention to the discussion of issues and exchange of experience in organizing anti-epidemic activities in the armed forces of the CSTO Member States amid the spread of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19 and the specificities of medical support of joint exercises of the CSTO Troops (Collective Forces) in a difficult sanitary and epidemiological situation. Issues related to building the capacity of the medical service by including medical units in the CSTO Troops (Collective Forces) were addressed.

There are plans to strengthen the CSTO Peacekeeping Forces with a special-purpose medical unit and, subsequently, to form a joint medical unit including experts from the CSTO Member States.

Summing up the event, Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov, Head of the CSTO Joint Staff, noted that the experts managed to discuss topical issues of medical support of the CSTO Troops (Collective Forces) and to identify ways to improve and develop cooperation on medical support.