Pakistan has a double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases simultaneously. Infectious diseases put added pressure on already scarce health resources through outbreaks as well. To tackle the challenges effectively, the Punjab Health Department, in collaboration with the National Institute of Health Pakistan, today launched the specialized 3 months frontline Field Epidemiology training programme for its district level surveillance staff executed by the Pakistan’s Field Epidemiology & Laboratory Training Programme (FELTP), the initiatives aims at imparting skills in collection, analysis and interpretation of most relevant district data thereby leading to early detection and generation of timely and appropriate response to the disease outbreaks as soon as they occur. The high value skill based training will be imparted by seasoned national experts from NIH, FELTP and Punjab health department. A total of 24 officers including District Surveillance Coordinators and Entomologists from different districts of Punjab participated in the weeklong first contact session of the course inaugurated in Lahore today; jointly by the Executive Director NIH and the Director General Health Services. Besides Dr. Haroon Jahangir, DGHS Dr. Shaheen, Director CDC and Dr. Saeed, Director EPI from Punjab Health Department, the inaugural session was also participated by Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, Executive Director and Chief Disease Surveillance Division NIH as well as Dr. Muhammad Salman, the Chief of its Public Health Laboratories Diagnostic Division along with senior faculty of the FELTP Pakistan. “Rapid population growth, unplanned urbanization, challenges of safe water and sanitation have serious implications for health, the load of which ultimately falls on the national healthcare system. We all have to our part to play for a meaningful difference on ground”, remarked Dr. Rana Safdar, the Executive Director NIH. “We are trying to convert the currently fragmented surveillance efforts in to an organized system that is capable of generating alerts and initiating efficient response at the district level, The recent establishment of district Rapid Response Teams is a step towards the same direction”, stated Dr. Shahnaz, the Director Communicable Disease Control, Punjab. “The training of frontline workers will enable our district public health officer to critically analyze the available data generated through multiple means and generate useful information for action by our district heath authorities. The provincial Disease Surveillance & Response Centre at DGHS Lahore will be further equipped to optimally support the district teams in the advent of an outbreak”, said Dr. Haroon Jahangir, Director General Health Services, Punjab. *-*-*-*
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