First-aid training given by Russian specialists in Africa

Workshop participants in Burkina Faso have been learning responses to medical emergencies like cardiac arrest

An intensive first-aid training program in Burkina Faso that is facilitated by Russia has just been completed by scores of emergency-response trainees in the capital, Ouagadougou. 

A report by outlet Burkina24 says different methods of rescue have been learned by the group, including first-aid techniques for people suffering cardiac arrest, as well as the methods of locating a patient’s heart.

The specialist training was conducted by a St Petersburg-based specialist in infectious diseases, who said it was a success. “The goal we established was achieved. We set up an organizing committee composed of [citizens] of Burkina Faso to select the first participants.” Other training sessions will be adapted to the needs of the country, the doctor, Dmitry, told Burkina24.

One of the participants, Elodie Korgo, welcomed the opportunity to “learn how to help someone who has had an accident; someone who is burned, who is the victim of a heart attack.”

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Last week an international conference entitled ‘Health and sovereignty’ was held in Ouagadougou. The event was focused on epidemics and pandemics, and on their impact on a country’s sovereignty. The conference was initiated by an association of naturotherapists in Burkina Faso.

Professor Denis Degterev, Leading Researcher at the Center for Transition Economics Studies of the African Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, gave a presentation on “Multidimensional Sovereignty in a Multi-polar World.”

“We understand that we need a strong state to combat epidemics,” Degterev said. He noted that in the decades just before the 1980s many of the continent’s countries had chosen a progressive path of active socio-economic development, which was supported by the Soviet Union, and schools, hospitals, institutes were built. All this ended in the 1980s with the beginning of ‘Perestroika’ in the socialist bloc’s countries under the management of International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“Burkina Faso was one of the last countries to join this process in 1991. These programs destroyed many of the social achievements in the African states,” Professor Degterev said.