The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) is urg­ing coun­tries to re­view con­tin­gency plans and ac­ti­vate pre­ven­tive mea­sures to pre­pare health sys­tems for po­ten­tial hur­ri­canes, storms, floods, and oth­er ex­treme weath­er events dur­ing the 2025 At­lantic Hur­ri­cane sea­son that ends on No­vem­ber 30.

“Ex­treme hy­drom­e­te­o­ro­log­i­cal events—such as hur­ri­canes, tor­ren­tial rain­fall and re­sult­ing floods and land­slides—are a con­stant threat to the re­gion, lead­ing to in­juries, loss of life and over­whelm­ing health care sys­tems,” said Leonar­do Her­nan­dez, Head of PA­HO’s Emer­gency Op­er­a­tions Unit.

“Ac­ti­vat­ing pre­ven­tive mea­sures to pro­tect peo­ple and health care in­fra­struc­ture pri­or to an ex­treme weath­er event is cru­cial to re­duc­ing their im­pact, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the health of vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties,” he added.