Fellows on International Missions

Newsletter April 2007

ESCAIDE

As was agreed in the last EPIET Steering Committee meeting (October 2006), ECDC and EPIET will jointly organise a conference in 2007, replacing the annual EPIET Scientific Seminar. This conference will be called “The 2007 ‘European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology’ (ESCAIDE)” and is jointly organised by ECDC, EPIET, EAN and Tephinet EURO. The conference will be held from Thursday 18 October until Saturday 20 October 2007.

The conference will aim at: (a) strengthening and expanding the networks in applied infectious disease epidemiology (b) sharing scientific knowledge and experience in this area in Europe and internationally and (c) providing a dedicated platform for EPIET/FETP (field epidemiology training programme) fellows to present their work.

The target audience for the conference includes epidemiologists, microbiologists, clinicians and public, veterinary and environmenal health experts with a professional and scientific interest in applied infectious disease epidemiology. In addition, the conference aims at bringing together members of the National institutes of Public Health, Dedicated Surveillance Networks (DSNs) and EPIET-FETP fellows and alumni.

Disease outbreaks & surveillance, antimicrobial resistance, health care associated infections, vaccine preventable diseases, HIV/STI, tuberculosis, food borne diseases, respiratory diseases, modeling in communicable diseases, economic evaluation, zoonoses, environmental health, international health, influenza, methods for microbial identification and typing.

Past and upcoming modules

- The Rapid Health Assessment in Complex Emergency Situations module was held in Veyrier du Lac, France: 19-23 February 2007. This was the fifth time that the Rapid Assessment module took place in Les Pensières. The module was organised in collaboration with Epiconcept and EpiLife, and the aim of the module was to provide participants with the epidemiological tools required to work in a complex emergency or severe epidemic context.

- A workshop for trainers and fellows in new EPIET sites was held in Prague on March 20th, 2007. The aim was to identify common obstacles in new EPIET training sites, and exploring possible solutions. Three fellows of cohort 11, and one fellow of cohort 12 participated, as well as six supervisors/colleagues from EU nations. This workshop was part of the train the trainer activities.

- The Communication module was held in Berlin, Germany from 26th - 30th March 2007, in collaboration with Robert-Koch Institute. Four fellows from cohort 12, two fellows from cohort 11, four German FETP fellows and eight external participants attended the module.

- A second Training the Trainers module will be held in Madrid, and will gather coordinators and supervisors from EU nations as well as two supervisors from WHO India. The objectives are to strengthen skills in writing and reviewing scientific articles in trainers of field epidemiology programmes in the EU. - The Vaccination module for cohorts 11 and 12 will be held in Bilthoven, The Netherlands, from 11-15 June 2007, hosted by RIVM.

- The Project Review module will be held in Warsaw, Poland from 20-24 August 2007 in collaboration with the National Institute of Hygiene.

- The 13th Introductory course for EPIET cohort 13, German FETPs and external participants will be held from 24 September to 10 October in Menorca, Spain.

International Conferences

Epicentre anniversary On 24th and 25th of May, Epicentre will celebrate its 20th anniversary. To mark this occasion, Epicentre organises two days of scientific discussions and presentations of a selection of their work from the past 20 years. The general theme of the 20 year event is: How epicentre did contribute to questions raised by the humanitarian field of operations. Topics for discussion include mortality assessment and its use, diagnostic tools and the role of operational research, and we will also present the recent results of HIV, malaria, nutrition and TB research projects.

Health Protection 2007 The HPA annual conference will take place at the University of Warwick 17-19 Sept 2007. The conference focuses on the latest scientific research and its practical application to key areas of health protection within: - Preventing and controlling infectious diseases - Protecting against radiation, chemical and environmental hazards - Preparing for potential or emerging threats to health Abstracts are now invited for submission before 10 May. Find out more at http://www.healthprotectionconference.org.uk/

International Missions

International Cricket Championships, Caribean (CAREC) On 21 December 2006 we announced a call for assistance to support CAREC in surveillance and outbreak detection during the International Cricket Championships in 9 Caribean countries. EPIET had funding to send one fellow, and from the respondents, Jurgita Bagdonaite (cohort 11) was selected. She arrived this week in Grenada to participate in the national surveillance team until 25 April. In addition, PEAC (at Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid) has sent dr Alicia Barrasa and Nathalie el Omeiri (cohort 12) to Guyana. The HPA London Region has sent dr Graham Fraser to work in the team in Jamaica. The Canadian Field Epidemiology Program has deployed several field epi's and seniors to this ICC mission. The last of the missions is planned to and on May 3rd.

Measles outbreak in Serbia (WHO-EURO) On February 14 we announced a call for assistance from WHO, to investigate the outbreak of measles in Serbia. We selected Naomi Boxal (cohort 11) and Ioannis Karagiannis (cohort 12) from the respondents, to join the mission from 24 February to March 15. The team was joined by dr Dragan Jankovic from WHO EURO. The investigation focused on describing the outbreak in Vojvodina, which occurred mainly among the Roma population. Preliminary findings of the team were published in Eurosurveillance of March 15 (vol 12, is 3).

Measles outbreak in Bosnia (WHO-EURO) During the mission in Serbia, on 2 March, WHO EURO requested to EPIET if an additional team could be constituted to investigate measles in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Instead of announcing a second measles request, we decided to directly assign fellows with an urgent need for involvement in an outbreak investigation. Jolita Mereckiene (cohort 11) and Merja Rantala (cohort 12) arrived in Sarajevo on 18 March, for a mission of approximately 3 weeks. The investigation is currently ongoing.

Cryptosporidiosis in Ireland Shortly before the mission to Bosnia, the host site in Dublin reported the need to involve a fellow in the investigation of a cryptosporidium outbreak. It proved not feasible to replace Jolita for the Bosnia mission on such short notice. We suggested that the institute in Dublin invited Assimoula Economopoulou (cohort 11) for this investigation, based on the urgent training need to be involved in an outbreak investigation. Assimoula arrived on 20 March to join the investigation team.

Selection process cohort 13

The recruitment of fellows for cohort 13 is currently in process. The final round of the process will end with the face-to-face interviews May 21-23, 2007 in Stockholm.