The Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research (CIDER) recently hosted a lunch symposium on 21 July 2017 at the 12th annual Public Health and Occupational Medicine (PHOM) Conference featuring invited speakers, Drs I Nyoman Kandun (Indonesia) and Do Thuy Trang (Vietnam). The event aimed to update participants on regional surveillance systems and initiatives to prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease threats, as well as to promote academic partnerships and surveillance network between local and regional organisations.
Dr I Nyoman Kandun is currently the Program Director of Indonesian Field Epidemiology Training Programme, and Dr Do Thuy Trang currently leads the team Surveillance and Response under the Global Health Security (GHS) Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – Country Office in Hanoi, Vietnam.
During his presentation on “Pandemic Preparedness and Response Partnering With Neighboring Countries On Emerging Infectious Diseases”, Dr Nyoman shared with participants the key considerations different countries need to note when combating a pandemic due to different existing conditions, e.g. health co-morbidities and public health support infrastructure, resulting in varying impacts on different countries from the same pandemic. Using the illustration of the avian influenza H5N1 and MERS-CoV in Indonesia, he highlighted that pandemic preparedness needs to be tailored to each country’s situation, as well as the importance of the role of MOH and the government in preparing a country for pandemic, such as promoting Field Epidemiology Training Programme nationally. Not limited to the national borders of any particular country, such all-inclusive partnership should also be extended globally.
Following which, Dr Trang shared further insights on how the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) has been rolled out in Vietnam, especially from the development of surveillance and Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which have helped to improve the outbreak detection and response in the country with her presentation on “Building an Early Warning System in Vietnam Finding and Stopping the Next Big Outbreak”. Instead of depending on just an Indicator-based surveillance (IBS) system, they have established an Event-based surveillance (EBS) system that takes into account the reporting of diseases at different levels such that even the community plays a role to help detect unusual events that might signal an outbreak.