Military preventive medicine support: the Balkan experience

Preventive medicine (PVNTMED) support to deployed forces is as varied as the circumstances for force deployment. The Bosnia-Herzegovina deployment of the 1st Armored Division as part of the Dayton Peace Accords Implementation Forces proved to be no exception to this premise. PVNTMED units, both in the field and at the U.S. Army-Europe support base, were challenged to provide mission support under significant mobility restrictions and in arenas of public health practice not previously thought to be of tactical significance, specifically environmental pollution. New to this operation was the deployment of a Theater Army Medical Laboratory with a mission to assist deployed PVNTMED units with the capability to rapidly diagnose infectious disease agents and provide an expanded array of environmental monitoring support. Vector-borne diseases were also a threat to health, and an innovative base camp sanitation assessment and reporting system was created to alert leaders to the risk of disease transmission to soldiers.