At least 13,000 inhabitants of villages in Togo and Ghana were treated for eye diseases, stomach ailments, malaria and other illnesses during a two-week military medical outreach programme involving US Navy personnel and the armed forces of the two countries.

In Togo, Operation Eagle Call Blue culminated on 25 April with a simulated plane crash, whose survivors received emergency care from rescuers. This part of the exercise was held at Lome Airport, which now has a US $90,000 emergency operations centre built with US aid. The centre, inaugurated on Thursday, will to be used in the event of aircraft accidents or incidents such as hostage crises.

During the exercise, members of the US Navy and the Togolese armed forces provided medical treatment for 7,624 patients from eight villages in southern Togo, according to Col. David Maserang, head of the US unit that took part in the operation.

Across the border in Ghana, about 6,000 villagers were treated in a similar exercise, which involved personnel from the US Navy, and Ghana's armed forces, fire service, National Disaster Management Organisation and Ministry of Health, the official Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) reported.

GBC said the aim of the exercise was to equip participants with the skills needed for mass casualty evacuation and treatment should the need arise during a national disaster.

The radio reported Defence Minister Kwame Addo Kufuor as saying that despite Ghana's state of preparedness for emergencies, much still needed to be done to establish a well-coordinated national emergency response system.