An intervention team from SAMU was deployed to El Salvador in response to a call from their government to SAMU First Response at the beginning of July. The team of 28 is there to help them as they face the sanitary crisis caused by COVID-19.

Given the situation in El Salvador, the Ministerio de Salud made an official call to Carlos Álvarez Leiva, President of SAMU, to provide assistance to a national hospital in San Salvador, the nations capital. The hospital has been recently inaugurated by president Nayub Bukele. The hospital counts with 1,000 beds of emergency and ICU support, making it the biggest hospital in Latin America. The urgent petition comes as there is a great need of volunteer medical support at all levels for at least a month. This call also comes with a need for instruction and knowledge transfer, something deep into SAMU’s mission and structure.

To respond to the call, SAMU has gone through an intense selection process in which more than a 100 professionals from different parts of Spain have applied. On July 29, 2020 the team of 28 professionals departed to San Salvador on a month long mission.