Arunachal: Epidemiology Training program for frontline public health professionals held
ITANAGAR- National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in partnership with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization India office, offers a three-month in-service 3×3 Basic Epidemiology Training program for frontline public health professionals.
The training focuses on “learning by doing” in the field. The duration of the course is three months with one contact session of three days per month for consecutive three months (hence the name 3X3). The training is a combination of classroom lectures with hands-on exercises and two field assignments. The assignments are mentor supported & aim at knowledge enhancement. The mentors selected to guide the participants were from the Community Medicine faculty of TRIHMS and State Public Health Specialists. The lectures and assignments focus on the basics of epidemiology; data quality and surveillance; outbreak investigation; and other topics related to field epidemiology
The training for Arunachal Pradesh was held from 27-29 October at Naharlagun. The Participants included district surveillance officers and Epidemiologists from 13 districts: Anjaw, Changlang, Dibang Valley, East Siang, ICR, Lohit, Longding, Lower Dibang Valley, Namsai, Upper Subansiri, Siang, Tirap, Upper Siang.
The training was inaugurated by Dr Sharat Chauhan Principal Secretary Health & Family Welfare, Government of Arunachal Pradesh and Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh, Director NCDC. Dr Sudhir Kumar Jain Advisor NCDC, Dr Himanshu Chauhan NPO-IDSP were other senior officials from NCDC.
The other state officials invited to the training were Director Health Services, Director TRIHMS, Director Family welfare, Director Medical Education and other senior officials of the Health department. The training was successfully completed due to the efforts of Dr L Jampa SSO-IDSP and his team.
The training programme aims to build a skilled public health workforce, ready to face health related threats, both anticipated and those not expected. In addition, the training also focuses on building relationships between State public health staff and Medical college faculty, so that they can complement each other in various public health response related activities.
