The NBC Defense War Academy visits the Brazilian Army's NBC structure

Inside the 4th Mixed Spanish-Brazilian comittee, the NBC Defense War Academy has conducted, from the 12th to the 16th of March, a visit of reprocity, in response to the visits made in 2013 and 2017 by the personnel belonging to the NBC structure of the Brazilian Army.

The Spanish delegation visited, in first place, the Specialized Instruction Academy, where it is placed the Brazilian NBC Academy in Rio de Janeiro, responsible of the education work in this field, and which shares base with the 1st NBC Defense Battalion. In it, NBC Defense Courses to Officers and Non-commissioned Officers (NCO), the Course of Command and Control of NBC Defense Operations, NBC Defense Courses to Health Officers and NCOs, the basic Course for personnel belonging to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPAQ in Spanish), the Course of Management and Maintenance of the NBC equipments and the Course of Updating NBC Defense are taught.

Afterwards, the Spanish soldiers visited the 1st NBC Defense Battalion, which has around 290 members, in order to support units such as the Division and dependent on the East Military Command. The Battalion is responsible of the NBC Defense of the Brazilian contingents which participate in operations abroad and, besides, has given support to the events of great visibility that Brazil has conducted these last years, acquiring a meaningful experience.

Other organism visited by the Spanish delegation was the QBRN Defense Institute (NRBQ in Spanish), with missions similar to the ones belonging to the "La Marañosa" Technical Institute, even though they do not have yet our Verification Laboratory (LAVEMA) of the OPAQ. It has as main mission to plan and conduct the NBC materials and the technical-scientific advice in the Brazilian Army, tending to be the referent Institute for the Armed Forces (FAS).

Finally, it was the turn of the Army's Biological Institute, which, among other missions, performs blood analysis to the military personnel and their families, preserves a data of the DNA of all the soldiers who go to missions abroad and it also conducts strategic studies in the field of the forensic application of the DNA. In the NBC section there is a level 2 and level 3 laboratory, nationally certified, and it carries out Bio-defense studies of smallpox in Brazil. Furthermore, it studies the effect of insecticides and the resistance to these poisons of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, main vector of the dengue fever, the  yellow fever and the zica virus, the way of migration and the most affected places. The Institute is responsible of developing information campaings in order to warn the population of locations where this mosquito is spread.