World Field Epidemiology Day: Field epidemiologists to foster One Health concept in Africa

The African Field Epidemiology Network AFENET says field epidemiologists are working towards fostering the concept of One Health, a multi-sectoral collaborative effort that would ensure optimal human, animal, and environmental health in Africa.

The Director AFENET, Dr Simon Antara, disclosed this to newsmen at a news conference, in Abuja, to commemorate the first World Field Epidemiology Day celebrated on September 7.

The World Field Epidemiology Day is a global movement to recognize and raise awareness of the vital role of field epidemiologists in protecting the health of populations and advancing global health security, and to advocate for increased investment in field epidemiology training, research, and professionals.

Fighting outbreaks and emergencies
Dr Antara said that in sub-Saharan Africa, field epidemiologists engage in fighting outbreaks and health emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic, they strengthen disease surveillance and response for early detection and effective response and generate evidence for policy and decision making.

“We recognize and raise awareness of the vital role of field epidemiologists in protecting the health of populations and advancing sub-national, national, and global health security. In the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Field epidemiologists investigated clusters of outbreaks, identified most at-risk populations, traced contacts of infected persons, isolated the infected and quarantined the exposed. They play a key role in communicating health messages and rallying the communities to ensure that the response to Covid-19 is effective thereby limiting disease transmission and averting millions of deaths, illness and a worse societal, economic and livelihood impacts. 

These are individuals that we should celebrate! This period has brought unprecedented visibility to the work of field epidemiologists as the world fights Covid-19, but this visibility has not always resulted in understanding the importance of field epidemiology, nor in the increased support needed to strengthen public health systems around the globe to better detect and respond to outbreaks,” Dr Antara said.

He said that field epidemiologists are the world’s “disease detectives” responsible for investigating public health signals to confirm outbreaks, and identify cases, contacts, and risk factors for diseases.

“Around the world, their work advances evidence that strengthens public health policies and interventions. The community-level knowledge and experiences they acquire through their work enable them to provide decision makers with information to generate strategies for effective health interventions. Many field epidemiologists have multidisciplinary expertise that allows them to respond to a wide range of health issues,” he said.

Collaborations
The director also disclosed that AFENET would be joining TEPHINET, United States Center for Disease Control (USCDC), other regional networks of field epidemiology training programs across the globe and many other stakeholders to celebrate the day.

“In the past 15 years. AFENET has worked with Governments and other stakeholders such as the USCDC to train over 2,000 field epidemiologists in sub-Sahara Africa. Whereas this progress is commendable, it only translates to 36 percentage of the required 5 500 epidemiologists needed in the region. 

There are still many countries in sub-Saharan Africa that do not have access to opportunities to develop field epidemiology capacity to strengthen their health systems. What that means is that such countries lack a critical element for public health emergency response. 

When such countries are faced with public health emergencies, they are unable to mount a formidable response to mitigate the health, economic and social consequences of these events,” he stressed.

He noted that a weak response portends danger for spread within countries and across borders. Nothing that was not good for national, continental and global health security.

He said to ensure all countries in sub-Saharan Africa have access to opportunities for field epidemiology capacity development and ensuring maximum utilisation of trained field epidemiologists remains a top priority for AFENET.

“We in AFENET want to salute the field epidemiologists in Africa and across the globe. We are safer and healthier because of your efforts. Together we have worked to protect our people against dangerous pathogens such as Ebola, Marburg, yellow fever, measles, TB, cholera and other infectious diseases. We have worked on other public health emergencies such as flooding, cyclones and other natural disasters. We have worked on nutritional issues, lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and hypertension as well as on mental health issues. Like Dr John Snow, the father of field epidemiology, we have provided the necessary and critical evidence for public health action. On September 7, 1854, John Snow took his findings from his now-famous investigation of the Broad Street cholera outbreak to local officials, leading them to act and to remove the handle of the offending water pump,” he added.

He however called on all African Governments to include field epidemiology capacity development as part of their workforce strengthening efforts.

“Again, we call on governments to fund, expand and sustain existing field epidemiology training programs. We are also calling on non- governmental organizations, the private sector, philanthropists and all stakeholders to renew their commitment to public health security, by investing adequately in the development of field epidemiology capacity across all countries in Africa,” he appealed.

Field Epidemiology is a branch of public health that focuses on identifying diseases and other health events and their risk factors with the view to ensuring that these diseases are prevented or controlled in a timely and effective manner using evidence-based approaches in a practical community level engagement.

Nneka Ukachukwu