The second meeting of the Cyprus PathoCERT Community of Practice took place on the 19th of November 2021, at the KIOS Center of Excellence (KIOS CoE) premises. The successful meeting was organized by Cyprus Civil Defence within the context of the European research project “PathoCERT” and included stakeholders from 15 organizations of the public sector of Cyprus, which met to discuss the use of novel technologies for managing waterborne pathogen contamination events during emergency situations.
During the meeting, the PathoCERT technologies were presented, aiming to assist first responders and water management organizations on effectively managing contamination events. The stakeholders interacted towards preparing the scenarios of the pilot exercises that will take place in Limassol and will be led by the Cyprus Civil Defence. During the interaction, the links between the developed PathoCERT technologies and real events scenarios were established, as well as the extraction of additional requirements for further developing these technologies.
According to the KIOS Research Assistant Professor and Technical Coordinator of the PathoCERT project, Dr. Demetris Eliades, “The effects caused by climate change, specially the rising of temperature, the more frequent and intense droughts, floods and fires, will affect the water quality, threaten people’s lives and destroy the environment. To effectively confront these crises, all stakeholders should strengthen their capabilities by utilizing the PathoCERT technologies”.
On behalf of the Cyprus Civil Defence, the Officer A, Mrs. Eftychia Stokkou, said that “the PathoCERT project aims to develop a network of experts in Cyprus, consisting of first responders, public authorities, water utilities, and researchers, to work together towards the management of such emergencies”.
Pathocert is a 3-year Horizon 2020 research project coordinated by the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus and involves 23 partners from the European Union and South Korea. Its goal is to develop technologies, tools and guidelines to be validated by first responders, helping them to detect and manage pathogen contamination events during emergency response situations.
