Welcome remarks at TECHNICAL FORUM ON APPLIED EPIDEMIOLOGY TRAINING
Richmonde Hotel, 21 San Miguel Avenue, Ortigas, Metro Manila, Philippines
31 March 2008

Dr. Enrique A. Tayag
Director, National Epidemiology Center (NEC)
Department of Health (DOH), Philippines

Dr. Vincent de Wit
Principal Health Specialist
Southeast Asia Regional Department, ADB

Dr. Li Ailan
Medical Officer for Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response,
WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO)

Distinguished Participants, Guests, and Friends,

A very pleasant good morning to you all.

On behalf of the Consultant Team to this ADB Regional Technical Assistance Project for Strengthening Epidemiological Surveillance and Response (ESR) for Communicable Diseases in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (otherwise known as RETA 6305), I welcome you all to Manila and to this Technical Forum on Applied Epidemiology Training.

This subregional forum is the third workshop in a series of technical workshops for implementation under this ADB-financed Project. Some of you were with us as we launched our Project at our Subregional ESR Planning Workshop in Jakarta, Indonesia in November 2006, and at the more recent Subregional Consultation on ESR Designs  in Kuala Lumpur last September 2007.
 
This final technical workshop is expected to help the participating countries to (i) strengthen their existing plans for human resource development (HRD) for ESR; (ii) estimate the cost of conducting training programs for applied epidemiology to address the needs of the entire country; (iii) discuss, identify, and agree on approaches to keep trained staff updated; and (iv) discuss/agree on how the countries in the region can share and network resources for epidemiology training programs.

This forum is timely – and extremely relevant – as it will tackle one of the critical challenges in strengthening national capacity for ESR, namely, the development of human resources for disease surveillance and response.

The development of skilled manpower at all levels of the health care system is an essential element in making disease surveillance and response work. The past two decades have seen the growth of Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs) in many countries. FETP is recognized and acknowledged as an effective approach towards developing professional epidemiologists to manage and perform required disease surveillance tasks and activities.
 
Although there is general agreement that the FETP approach has strengthened the capacity of many countries to conduct surveillance and response activities at the national level, there appears to be no clear consensus on the approaches and strategies in building surveillance and response capacities at the sub-national and local levels. There have been many initiatives to develop and establish short training programs, but these have produced varying results in terms of their usefulness and effectiveness. What is less uncertain is that many of these initiatives continue to face problems in terms of course duration, training content, training approaches and methodologies, and the need for continuing education and resource mobilization to sustain the training programs.

While this Technical Forum may not be able to provide all the answers to the many issues and questions regarding applied epidemiology training, our Team believes that your presence here today, and the collective sharing of valuable experiences and lessons learned, will help in making informed decisions and the right choices.

After all, informed and evidence-based decision-making is what epidemiology is all about.

In closing, I wish you an enjoyable, albeit brief, stay in Manila, and I look forward to two days of productive discussions, interactions, and experience sharing among colleagues in the ESR.

Maraming salamat po at Mabuhay!