ISLAMABAD: The National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad has successfully completed its first five-day short course to train the participants to act as frontline force for disease surveillance and outbreak response in their respective institutions.
The first session of the course was held at NIH from October 23 to October 27, where more than 25 participants from different institutions of the twin cities, alongside Pakistan Army and Pakistan Navy personnel, participated in the course.
The course was launched jointly by NIH Executive Director Brigadier Dr Aamer Ikram and Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme (FELTP) director.
Representatives from Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States (US) and Pakistan were also present. On the occasion, Dr Aamer Ikram informed the participants that they were now linked to a global effort to ensure global health through World Health Organisation (WHO) International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005.
It merits mention here that NIH launched the first short course for civilian public health officials to transform them into disease detectives, with the technical collaboration of FELTP.
Speaking on the occasion, CDC Atlanta representative Dr Fontaine called the course a major step towards strengthening disease surveillance capacity of Pakistan.
FELTP Resident Adviser Dr Rana Jawad Asghar appreciated the efforts of the Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and Coordination (NHSRC) and NIH for strengthening the health sector by improving the quality of health intelligence.
He said that we could only win war against bacteria and viruses if we deployed our best work force on health intelligence gathering. NIH Field Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Division chief also welcomed new recruits to the FELTP family.
Frontline FELTP is a shortened version of FELTP advanced programme, which is a 2-year advanced training programme in the medical field. Frontline course aimed to improve the capacity of health intelligence and overall improvement in data collection and outbreak detection. The entire system enabled senior decision makers to take effective decisions regarding diseases by making efficient use of financial resources.
Being a signatory of World Health Organisation (WHO) International Health Regulations 2005, it is mandatory for Pakistan to have health workers possessing specialised skills in disease surveillance and response.
With this vision, field epidemiology training was started in Pakistan in 2006. What made this course unique was the fact that for the first time, nurses and surveillance officers were also working alongside doctors, as they collectively formed the frontline force for reporting infectious diseases and emergency health threats.
Besides, NIH also organised an awareness lecture about dengue fever for the health care professionals working in the federal capital.