FETP-Frontline Training Continued in Eastern Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Public Health Institute’s (EPHI) Public Health Emergency Management (PHEM) started the Frontline Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) in Dire Dawa city for 55 PHEM officers drawn from Harrari, Somali and Dire Dawa as of February 5, 2018.
The training is organized in collaboration with the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the organizers this is the first round training workshop and during this round the trainees will be given field work assignment which they will carry out with senior PHEM officers assigned to them as mentors. After this there will be another two training workshops where the trainees report back and present their on job project works and finally after successful completion they will be certified.
It is to be recalled that in December 2017 EPHI’s PHEM has certified 148 PHEM officers from Addis Ababa and the South Nations Nationalities and People’s Regional State (SNNPRS) who successfully completed the FETP training.
After completing the training the officers are expected are to be able to monitor and assess the quality of public health surveillance data, analyze and interpret surveillance data regularly, prepare surveillance summary reports that is useful for public health evidence based decision-making. They are also expected to conduct case investigations or participate in outbreak investigations and communicate effectively with public health decision makers.
Information from EPHI’s PHEM indicates that more than 400 public health emergency management (PHEM) officers from Woreda Health Offices, Zone and Sub-city Health Departments and Regional Health Bureaus of Addis Ababa City Administration, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP), Benishangul Gumuz, Gambella, Oromia and Amhara regions have been enrolled in the training program.
The basic or frontline Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) is three month training and started in 2016 in Ethiopia with technical and financial support from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC). FETP-Frontline designed to improve the country’s capacity to prevent, detect and respond to public health emergencies is an in-service training with mentorship program where mentors are assigned to mentor all mentees throughout the process.