GHD|EMPHNET joins global community in celebrating World Field Epidemiology Day

AMMAN — In the past year, the world has focused on the work of field epidemiologists “disease detectives” as the frontliners to protect the health of population during COVID-19 pandemic, by involving in the contact tracing, case investigations, community engagement and data analysis. 

This year, the world is celebrating the work of field epidemiology on the September 7 by advocating to increase support needed to strength public health systems around the world to better detect and respond to outbreaks, the Global Health Development (GHD) said in a statement.

GHD is a regional initiative created to support countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region and to strengthen their health systems to respond to public health challenges and threats.  GHD was initiated to advance the work of the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) by building coordinating mechanisms with Ministries of Health, International Organisations and other institutions to improve population health outcomes

The International Health Regulations (IHR) and the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) call for at least one trained field epidemiologist per 200,000 people in every country. Field epidemiologists are needed to detect, respond to, and contain public health emergencies.

Haitham Bashier, Workforce Capacity Team Leader at GHD|EMPHNET, said: “Field epidemiologists have always been crucial to the safety and health of the communities. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of this field of public health.

“We need to increase the number of trained field epidemiologists, introduce the programme into new countries, and establish different levels of the Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP). This is to build the competencies of the public health workforce at various levels of the health system,” Bashier said

This movement is organised by Training Programmes in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET).