Japan to Establish DMAT Secretariats in Hokkaido, Kyushu

Tokyo, May 1 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s health ministry will establish a secretariat for the disaster medical assistance team, or DMAT, program in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido and another in the Kyushu southwestern region within fiscal 2026, which started last month. By creating the two more offices, in addition to the existing secretariats in Tokyo and the western city of Osaka, the ministry aims to speed up response to regional disasters and have wide-area bases to deal better with large-scale disasters, such as a powerful earthquake that is predicted to occur in the Nankai Trough in the Pacific off central to southwestern Japan. DMATs are teams of professionals specially trained to provide medical assistance immediately after disasters strike. Each unit basically comprises one doctor, two nurses and one coordinator. As of April 2025, some 19,000 people were registered with the program. In normal times, the DMAT secretariats, managed by the government-affiliated Japan Institute for Health Security, offer medical care training in preparation for disasters. Once a disaster occurs, secretariat staff will be sent to prefectural response headquarters and medical institutions to collect information, provide advice and coordinate dispatches of DMATs. The secretariats in Hokkaido and Kyushu are expected to respond to massive regional disasters, such as a possible earthquake along the Japan and Chishima trenches off the Pacific coasts of Hokkaido and northeastern and eastern Japan regions as well as floods to be caused by torrential rains from linear precipitation zones. They will also conduct training tailored for regions that are prone to specific disasters such as tsunami. The secretariats are also expected to serve as wide-area bases in the event of disasters such as an earthquake that would strike directly beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area and a Nankai Trough quake. The ministry is considering increasing the total number of DMAT secretariats to eight in fiscal 2027 or later. “We aim to realize quick disaster response by setting up the two new secretariats (in Hokkaido and Kyushu) as an initial step,” Yuichi Koido, head of the DMAT secretariats, said at a ceremony held in Tokyo on April 7 to mark the first anniversary of the JIHS. The JIHS was established on April 1, 2025, through the merger of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the National Center for Global Health and Medicine. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]