Field Epidemiology Training Program: Stories & Blogs
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Nigeria FETP resident Dr. Wada Imam Bello carrying polio vaccine on foot across a river in Katsina, Nigeria
Learn more about FETP work and accomplishments through our stories and blogs.
Multi-Region
DRC: Bridging the Gap During the Ebola Epidemic
CDC trains disease detectives to provide faster, smarter response to outbreaks. With program engagement in over 70 countries, CDC supports the development of Field Epidemiology Training Programs around the world.
Posted August 7, 2017
Prevent. Detect. Respond. [318KB]
Our work in countries around the world depends on people – at CDC, in ministries of health, and in organizations across all sectors – who have the skills and the will to make a difference.
Posted April 29, 2016
How CDC Invests in People [220KB]
Disease detectives’ work prevents illness, gets to the root of health problems, and helps people cope in difficult situations.
Posted April 29, 2016
FETP: Then and Now [318KB]
In 1980, FETP and the Thai Ministry of Health broke new ground in improving public health throughout the world by expanding to areas outside of North America, beginning in Thailand.
Posted April 29, 2016
CDC Director Mentors FETP Residents [709KB]
To illustrate his own commitment to mentorship, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden began last year to provide direct, one-on-one mentorship to FETP fellows who are engaged in challenging projects all over the world.
Posted April 29, 2016
Meet our FETP Resident Advisors [318KB]
FETP work would not be possible without Resident Advisors, who serve as expert mentors for residents as they learn the fundamental skills of epidemiology.
Posted April 29, 2016
FETP On the Scene [268KB]
FETP takes learning by doing seriously. Residents spend at least 75% of their time in the field gaining hands-on experience.
Posted April 29, 2016
GHSA in Action Stories
These GHSA in Action stories illustrate the day-to-day work being done by CDC and its country partners to implement the GHSA across the globe.
Posted May 3, 2016
Africa
FETP Responds to Ebola Outbreak in DRC
On May 11, 2017, the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of a cluster of suspected cases of Ebola virus disease in the Likati health zone…
Posted August 7, 2017
Disease Detective Discovers First Zika Cases in Guinea-Bissau
CDC-trained disease detectives like Vitor Inhane learn to quickly put the pieces together to figure out what’s making people sick in a community and prevent more people from becoming ill. While conducting a malaria study in Guinea-Bissau…
Posted August 7, 2017
Data Inspires Lifesaving Action In Sierra Leone
Disease detectives know that data can save lives. This is why three CDC-trained disease detectives from Sierra Leone’s Frontline Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP-Frontline) searched the country’s treasure troves of…
Posted August 7, 2017
Reaching Across Borders in Benin
Standing near the border crossing between Benin and Togo, a recent graduate of Benin’s Field Epidemiology Training Program-Frontline course (FETP-Frontline) – which trains disease detectives in Benin…
Posted August 7, 2017
Senegal’s EOC Helps Control Influenza Outbreak
In March 2017, as the mid-term school holidays began in Senegal’s eastern region of Kedougou, the Ministry of Health received reports that children were falling ill. Some had died.
Posted August 7, 2017
Uganda’s Rapid Response to Avian Influenza Virus Outbreak in Birds
When local fishermen in Uganda spotted a massive die-off of migratory birds, it raised an alarm for the country. In January 2017, in the Lake Victoria island and lakeshore districts of Kalangala, Masaka, and Wakiso…
Posted August 7, 2017
Decentralizing and Strengthening Egypt’s Surveillance Lab System
The importance of lab surveillance to protect public health cannot be overstated; when one lab is recognized as a model for other labs, it deserves a closer look.
Posted December 12, 2016
Blog: A Ray of Hope for a Better-Prepared Ethiopia
I have called Ethiopia home for the past five years – it is a country that is very close to my heart. I was moved to humanitarian work by images of the famine when I was in college and subsequently adopted my daughter from here.
Posted May 2, 2016
Disease Detectives Come Together in Guinea [575KB]
Alaine Knipes arrived in Guinea just days after the country was declared Ebola free. She immediately boarded a UN flight from Conakry to join Dr. Gauthier Mubenga in the far-flung town of N’Zerekore.
Posted April 29, 2016
Mali: A Wider Net Catches Polio
A field epidemiology training program called FETP STEP, which was put in place to address the Ebola outbreak, turned out to also be key in thwarting a potentially devastating outbreak of polio. In September 2015, a 19-month-old child from Guinea crossed the border into Mali with a case of vaccine-derived polio.
Posted March 16, 2016
DRC: Bridging the Gap During the Ebola Epidemic
During the Ebola epidemic, disease detectives from the Democratic Republic of Congo brought contact-tracing expertise to Guinea to help find and stop the disease. The DRC has its own history with Ebola, having faced one short-lived outbreak in 1976 and another in the mid-90s.
Posted February 10, 2016
Nigeria: How Being Prepared Avoided a Tragedy
Nigeria’s experience with Ebola shows us how having trained experts in place can make the difference when confronting unexpected health threats.
Posted February 9, 2016
FETP Face Time with the CDC Director: Lilian Bulage
Lilian Bulage had no way of knowing that her training in the Uganda FETP would include one-on-one mentoring from CDC Director Tom Frieden.
Posted September 2, 2015
2015 SAFETP Graduates Setting the Standard
Two South Africa Field Epidemiology Training Programme residents recently completed their training and took the time to share their experiences with CDC South Africa.
Posted June 29, 2015
CDC partners with ministries of health, the World Bank, and others to re-launch and expand FETP in West Africa
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa highlights the urgent need to build regional capacity. The West Africa Field Epidemiology Training Program (WAFETP) will be re-launched and expanded in 2015.
Posted December 2014
Uganda FETP Gets Crash Course in Disease Detection
Within days of an “strange disease” beginning in Uganda, young Uganda FETP Fellows would, in the storied tradition of EIS, trade lessons for disease detection as they took on the outbreak investigation.
Posted June 12, 2015
CDC Launches FETP-STEP in Cote d’Ivoire and Other High-risk Unaffected Countries in West Africa
CDC and regional partners remain vigilant in building surveillance capacity in the West Africa region. The FETP STEP pilot was held in Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire, in January with 24 participants comprised of disease surveillance officers and public health physicians from each of the 12 “high risk” districts..
Posted March 31, 2015
Saving Lives and Protecting People in Nigeria
Dr. Nguku knows that disease response must be swift. He learned this during his own FELTP training in Kenya. “Three weeks into the training there was this massive aflatoxicosis outbreak,” he says. “The classes were suspended, and we were deployed in the field to help solve this problem.”
Posted January 2, 2015
FETP Work in South Sudan Benefits the Whole World
We’ve already seen the positive impact that FETP has had on public health in South Sudan; surveillance and immunization officers now have standardized job descriptions and terms of reference, demonstrating the way FETP has helped to develop and strengthen the public health workforce in the country.
Posted May 8, 2014
Mozambique FELTP fellows evaluate impact of malaria bed net campaign
Four Mozambican epidemiologists-in-training spent a month walking up to ten kilometers a day to make sure that one of the most effective malaria control interventions was reaching the poorest Mozambicans
wor Posted April 24, 2014
Monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of Congo
In December 2013, DRC Field Epidemiology Laboratory Training Program (FELTP) residents assisted with the DRC Monkeypox outbreak response.
Posted April 2014
Americas
Neighbors Unite to Fight Zika Across the Americas
If there’s an emergency in Guatemala, it is likely that an outbreak in Honduras or El Salvador will soon follow,” says Luis Hernandez, who handles emergency preparedness and response for CDC in Central America. Zika virus is no exception…
Posted April 29, 2016
Improving Disease Surveillance and Outbreak Response in the Latin American and Caribbean Region through the Field Epidemiology Training Program
CDC has been working with the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Health (MoH), in collaboration with the University of Puerto Rico, to strengthen basic and intermediate-level training capacity for epidemiologists and laboratory personnel as part of the three-tiered “pyramid” training model developed and implemented by countries in Central America.
Posted February 5, 2014
Asia
Progress in Pakistan: Growing Response to Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
Over the past two years, Pakistan has significantly increased its ability to investigate and respond to outbreaks of deadly but preventable diseases like measles, pertussis, and diphtheria. The key to their success has been through building…
Posted August 7, 2017
Vietnam: Empowering Communities to Detect Potential Outbreaks
Diseases may start in local communities before they spread and become widespread outbreaks. Vietnam is harnessing the power of community members to identify potential outbreaks earlier to shorten response times and avert epidemics.
Posted May 3, 2016
Thailand: Field Epidemiologists Fight Global Health Threats
FETP first took root outside of North America in Thailand as a partnership with the country’s Ministry of Health. In the last 35 years, Thailand’s FETP has helped tackle some of the most lethal public health threats in the region, including HIV, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), botulism, malaria, and the 2009 influenza pandemic.
Posted February 10, 2016
CDC Director Advises FETP Resident to Think Small on Big Challenges of Pertussis
In Iraq, amid security concerns and a complex political climate, Rana Khalid is taking on a challenge that CDC Director Tom Frieden calls “huge:” finding and documenting cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough.
Posted February 1, 2016
Insight for Indonesia: CDC Director Mentors Disease Detective from Across the World
Late at night in Indonesia, FETP resident Nyoman Purnawan spoke with CDC Director Tom Frieden, in one of a series of one-on-one conversations with the director designed to provide mentorship to FETP residents around the world.
Posted October 14, 2015
Vietnam Field Epidemiology Training Program: Measuring the Impact of Vietnam’s Universal Helmet Law in Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam FETP residents are mesuring the effect of the universal helmet law in reducing head injuries and deaths in the Ho Chi Minh City’s Cu Chi district.
Posted July 30, 2015
WHO and UNICEF Partner with CDC and Pakistan FELTP to Build Capacity for Responding to Polio and Ebola Outbreaks
Pakistan’s FELTP conducted a five-day training workshop on polio eradication that included a short course on investigating and responding to Ebola outbreaks.
Posted April 16, 2015
Partnership between the Pakistan FELTP and the Pakistan Armed Forces to Improve Skills in Applied Epidemiology and Outbreak Response
The partnership between the Pakistan FELTP and the Pakistan Armed Forces continues to develop as both groups strive to develop well-trained medical staff and field epidemiologists capable of responding to important public health events.
Posted December 31, 2014
Teaching Leadership and Management Skills to FETP Fellows from Thailand and India
FETP residents in Thailand and India attended training sessions to help them become more effective managers and leaders.
Posted October 2014
Central Asia
Country of Georgia: Putting Data to Work
Georgia is the first country to take on the challenge of completely eliminating Hepatitis C (HCV) and they’re using a team of international disease detectives to find out how it’s spreading.
Posted February 10, 2016
- Page last reviewed: August 14, 2017
- Page last updated: August 14, 2017
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