Delivery of assistance

Summary In conclusion the delivery of Assistance under Article X of the Chemical... 

Weapons Convention is facilitated by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the assistance received through the contributions of member states and the utilisation of experts within and external to the OPCW. It also involves the coordination and delivery of specialised services from national agencies and other international organisations involved in providing emergency humanitarian assistance. The OPCW will continue its work on the cooperative efforts with many member states to maintain the effort to development, implement and train for an effective delivery of assistance in accordance with the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention. 

In this context, the Convention requires that States Parties cooperate with the OPCW in facilitating the coordination and delivery of assistance and protection to minimise the consequences of a chemical weapons attack, in countering the threat of use of chemical weapons, and in eliminating the threats posed by activities prohibited under Article I of the Convention. Article X stipulates that each State Party has the right to request and to receive assistance and protection against the use or threat of use of chemical weapons. 

The modular approach is based upon the current capacity of the OPCW in terms of offers of assistance by States Parties (in the form of material and personnel), and the capacity of the Secretariat to store, maintain, transport, and distribute the items and resources most likely to be needed should a CW-related emergency arise. The components of this approach would involve a central stockpile of resources and equipment in the Organisation s headquarters, available for immediate dispatch to a requesting State Party, and in addition, stockpiles of resources which have been offered by States Parties and organised in the form of modules. The modules would be categorised into basic assistance modules (BAMs) for emergency assistance, and specialised assistance modules (SAMs) for supplementary and humanitarian assistance. The Secretariat would store BAMs and a very limited stockpile of humanitarian assistance, while both BAMs and SAMs would be stockpiled by the States Parties. The basic module could consist of pallet-packed items, ready to be airlifted within 12 hours after the request for assistance has been received. The BAMs in the headquarters stockpile will be identical to the BAMs stored by States Parties. This will facilitate identification, packing, dispatch, and the delivery of assistance. 

The OPCW will cooperate with relevant international organisations for the delivery of assistance. Such a recommendation is based on a lack of resources within the OPCW to individually provide delivery of assistance, and the fact that it is not economical for the Organisation to seek a delivery capability. In addition, cooperation with international organisations and national agencies helps avoid a duplication of activities, particularly on the site of operations furthermore, the Organisation can utilise the experience of other international organisations. 

By the time of the RevCon, no investigations of alleged nse (LAU) had been requested or conducted. There have been a nnmber of training exercises on lAU and delivery of assistance conducted by the OPCW and States Parties. These have highlighted the importance of hnman factors, such as interviewing techniques and the collection of evidence, and the need for appropriate equipment. As in the case of challenge inspections, the Secretariat has put in place the necessary internal procedures for an lAU to allow it to dispatch an inspection team at short notice. 

The First International exercise on Delivery of Assistance (ASSISTEX-1) was a good opportunity to assess the effectiveness of a medical plan for mass casualty management in case of a chemo-terroristic attack. 

Assess the overall validity of current Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Working Instructions (WIs) and other documents dealing with the Delivery of Assistance (DoA). 

The ASSISTEX-I as the first OPCW international exercise on delivery of assistance in case of a chemo-terroristic attack was a unique experience in such a large scale multinational anti chemo-terroristic operation and an invaluable experience for all participating teams to assess their capabilities in terms of deployment to a requesting state party in a short time, working in an multi-national multi-organizational assistance system, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each team. 

Organizing regional assistance networks in the regional model, delivery of assistance is more available and rapid than the present international model. 

In relation to a response to an assistance request in accordance with paragraph 8 of Article X, the First Review Conference noted that progress had been made in relation to the development and adoption of an operational concept of assistance. The First Review Conference noted in this context the OPCW s readiness for the delivery of assistance in the case of the use or threat of use of chemical weapons. 

The Second Review Conference stressed the importance of investigations of alleged use or threat of use of chemical weapons involving States Parties. For such situations, the OPCW must have the capacity and be ready at all times to investigate the need for follow-on action by the OPCW, as well as to facilitate the delivery of assistance. In this context, the Second Review Conference noted the Scientific Advisory Board s work on the analysis of bio-medical samples and requested the Director-General to present a proposal to develop this capability as foreseen by the Council at its Forty-Fourth Session (EC-44/2, dated 17 March 2006). 

Strumpf D, Carlisle C, Millman R, et al. An evaluation of the Respironics BiPap bi-level C-Pap device for delivery of assisted ventilation. Respir Care 1990 35 415-422. 

LLP-assisted local delivery of dmgs is realized via several strategies. In the first strategy, soluble LLPs are injected and their coacervation is triggered by the body temperature. Here, the dmg can be covalently attached to the ELP or it can just be mixed with the ELP. In another approach, crosslinked ELP depots containing a dmg can be produced and then implanted to generate a stable release of the dmg. 

The top-down approach involves size reduction by the application of three main types of force — compression, impact and shear. In the case of colloids, the small entities produced are subsequently kinetically stabilized against coalescence with the assistance of ingredients such as emulsifiers and stabilizers (Dickinson, 2003a). In this approach the ultimate particle size is dependent on factors such as the number of passes through the device (microfluidization), the time of emulsification (ultrasonics), the energy dissipation rate (homogenization pressure or shear-rate), the type and pore size of any membranes, the concentrations of emulsifiers and stabilizers, the dispersed phase volume fraction, the charge on the particles, and so on. To date, the top-down approach is the one that has been mainly involved in commercial scale production of nanomaterials. For example, the approach has been used to produce submicron liposomes for the delivery of ferrous sulfate, ascorbic acid, and other poorly absorbed hydrophilic compounds (Vuillemard, 1991 ... 

Essa E, Bonner M, Barry B. Electrically assisted skin delivery of liposomal estradiol phospholipid as damage retardant. J Control Release 2004 95 535-546. 

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