A Sure Pathway to Stronger Disease Surveillance: Uganda Frontline Field Epidemiology Training Program graduates the first cohort

The Field Epidemiology Training program (FETP) Frontline Surveillance Training is a 3-month in-service program focused on equipping health workers with practical skills necessary to manage all aspects of the disease surveillance cycle including data use for decision making at the primary healthcare level. By targeting managers and health workers responsible for handling data at primary health care level, the frontline FETP strengthens routine disease surveillance and ultimately enables healthcare systems to detect and respond to diseases and events of public health importance or international concern.

In Uganda, implementing Frontline FETP commenced in January 2016 with the full support and involvement of the Ministry of Health. Participants of the inaugural class which commenced in April 2016 were drawn from four central districts of Mukono, Kayunga, Nakaseke and Nakasongola. They included district health officers, bio- statisticians as well as surveillance and HMIS focal persons.

The benefits of the training which are expected to include increased capacity among health staff to recognize public health problems pertinent to the population and increased capacity among staff to pro- vide a descriptive analysis of a public health problem among others. including typhoid and cholera during their fieldwork projects. The close collaborating relationship between the frontline and advanced FETP program has seen the advanced FETP fellows take an active role in training and mentoring of frontline participants .

Additionally the joint investigation of suspected disease outbreaks has ensured an early reality of building a network of well-trained surveillance officers in the country. With the graduation of the first cohort of trainees in July 2016, an occasion that was graced with presence of the US Ambassador to Uganda, the training team is already looking ahead and will immediately be starting to train the next group of districts which will target six districts in northern Uganda.