Class is in session during Operation Pacific Angel

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Allison Day
  • 13th Air Force Public Affairs
LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines --  Class is in session during Operation Pacific Angel-Philippines, a joint and combined humanitarian mission, which provides subject-matter expert exchanges in addition to medical dental, optometry and engineering support.

The six-day operation began March 5 and public health and bio-environmental conducted eight SMEEs to date including mosquito surveillance and control, outbreak investigation and field site selection.

"Of all the SMEEs conducted food and water were the most important," said Capt. Janice McDowell, 8th Medical Operations Squadron public health flight commander from Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea. "My mission here is to assess where the Philippine people are in their food safety education, because I felt it was one of the most critical areas to inspect."

McDowell arrived at her assessment through meeting with local sanitation engineers (health officials) and her Filipino Police and Armed Forces counterparts.

"I met with these agencies the week before the exercise began," said McDowell. "Knowing that food and water are potential problems in developing countries, it was important to inspect the two areas that could make people sick."

Public health inspected six local restaurants during one of their SMEEs.

"Tuesday, we did restaurant inspections and we could tell that the managers had a desire to learn," said McDowell. "The fixes we suggested are easy to implement, but they really have to strengthen their education about food safety, so everyone knows the proper ways to handle food."

During these inspections, McDowell was accompanied by members of the veterinary corps, a surgeon from the Philippine Police and sanitation engineers.

One of the veterinary corps' officers shared a story about her experience.

"When our primary chief informed us that our role in this activity (mission) is about preventive medicine focusing specifically on water analysis for inspection and camp sanitation, I personally thought about how I was going to do my job," said Philippine Capt. Mary Grace Ramos from Clark Air Base, Pampanga Province, Philippines. "I had never dealt with this area and had no knowledge of preventive medicine, so when I met Capt. McDowell, I told her that I'm not an expert in this matter. I'm glad I did because she has been very kind to teach us and share her knowledge and expertise."

Through the SMEE, the Philippine captain said, "I learned things I never expected to learn. Those things helped me realize how I will further improve my profession by passing on what I have learned here to my unit."

A veterinarian by trade, Ramos is enjoying the exchanges, she said.

"So far, this is my third activity, but at the other activities I did veterinarian work," said Ramos. "This one has a bigger impact on me because it deals with people and shows the importance of what preventive medicine is."

Another aspect of preventive medicine is water safety and Maj. Michael Moran, 36th Medical Operations Squadron aerospace medical flight commander from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, shared his knowledge of safe drinking water during his water inspections at six schools.

"Water used should be inspected on a monthly basis," said Moran. "When we inspect water, there should be detectable levels of chlorine, 0.25 parts per million to one part per million. If chlorine is within these levels, it will kill any microbes (bacteria, viruses, and parasites) present in the water."

We identified the absence of the appropriate chlorine levels and sanitation engineers who accompanied us are aware of our findings."

Three sanitation engineers involved with the SMEEs since the operation began asked many questions.

"They need the tools and they need to understand why those tools are important," said McDowell.

The tools McDowell refers to are simple tools, like chlorine inspection strips and thermometers.

"Using a food thermometer is important with food because certain bacteria present in food can only be killed when the food is cooked to a certain temperature," said Tech. Sgt. Gregory Douyon, 36th Contingency Response Group NCOIC of public health, AAFB. "Once food is cooked it should be at kept at 135 degrees and cold foods should be kept no higher than 41 degrees for serving."

This is also a standard you can keep in your own home for food safety, said Douyon. The Haitian-born Tech Sgt. who calls Miami, Fla. home, is passionate about what he does and so is McDowell.

"Once the sanitation engineers and the restaurant workers understand the importance of these simple tools and why using them is important, it is my hope that it will spread throughout the country," said McDowell.

So far, more than 20 SMEEs have been conducted during PACANGEL. The operation, led by 13th Air Force, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, supports U.S. Pacific Command's capacity-building efforts by partnering with other governments, non-governmental agencies and multilateral militaries in the Philippines to provide medical, dental, optometry and engineering support to Philippine citizens.