One theme that has come out of this week's ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Bio-Preparedness Table-Top Exercise Workshop is that being prepared for an outbreak of an infectious disease is more than having enough doctors and medical staff to respond, its about communication, coordination and collaboration.

Delegates from 26 nations and the European Union are hard at work this week refining their national response plans, discussing with Philippine and U.S. Bio-Preparedness experts everything from health and law enforcement response and public affairs and social media strategy for an infectious disease outbreak.

Dr. Irma Makalinao, from the University of The Philippines Manila, says day two of the Workshop is about transitioning from listening about each specific nation's template, to working together to find common ground.

"It has to begin with this national-level engagement and seeing what is common between the countries, and then we are able to see what kind of regional approach can be taken from the Bio-Preparedness Template, and hopefully validating it for the ASEAN Regional Forum."

After a short introduction, Philippine and U.S. facilitators set the parameters for today's "hypothetical" exercise scenarios. The overall "simulated" scene: A disease outbreak is set to happen at the South East Asian Games in Singapore in the near future, and over 2,500 people are suddenly showing signs of respiratory disease.

"These countries are very close together, and it's very easy to travel from one to another, and one person can infect many, so it's important to recognize things early, and be prepared early if something starts showing up," said Erich Hoffmann, a U.S. facilitator from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Delegates broke out into groups by region, and using the Bio-Preparedness template they created last year, started putting their plan together in four phases.

"The fields of interest we are looking at are how do you prepare for the outbreak, whether it's a naturally occurring outbreak, or something that's intentional- what can be done? What can you do in the preparation phase," said Dr. Holly Franz, a U.S. facilitator for the exercise.

Phase one , called "Move Zero," set the scene and established a baseline for the exercise scenario, covering all of the planning and sustainment steps before the outbreak is confirmed.

Phase two and three, the outbreak occurs, and the regional groups were asked to simulate a Task Force, establish medical containment strategies, civil-military protection and mitigation considerations, implement emergency communication networks and initiating regional mitigation efforts.

Phases three and four involved managing any additional overall regional Bio-Preparedness Response ,information-sharing and mitigation operations through Strategic Communication and Social Media considerations.

The result of the TTX will not be revealed until the last day of the exercise, but things are going very well in the eyes of the facilitators.

"Of course the first few minutes are difficult, so you have to make sure you break the ice between the countries, but now the exercise has a life of its own, and now the interaction is going very well," said Makalinao.

Brig. Gen. Patrick Sargent, commanding general, Regional Health Command-Pacific, and a lead U.S. Delegate to the Workshop, spoke to senior leaders during an executive meeting, "I think our Philippine colleagues did a beautiful job outlining how they have operationalized the Bio-Preparedness Template, and I do believe when the groups come back together, that they will have done a fabulous job to come together to find those gaps, and that will help us enhance the quality of the template product."