Africa-Press – Botswana. The Ministry of Health is on course to build a resilient health care system able to withstand emergent public health events as well as prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats.
Such system will consider all aspects involved in a pandemic response, be it surveillance, strategic stakeholder engagement, access to services, supply chain management, financing and governance arrangements, among other things.
Assistant Minister of Health, Mr Setlhomo Lelatisitswe, said Wednesday during graduation of the second cohort of Frontline Field Epidemiology Training Programme.
He said enhancing the health care system would start bearing fruits.
The assistant minister said it was essential for every country to have an applied epidemiology training programme that could result in the expansion of knowledge and skills of health personnel to conduct surveillance, investigate outbreaks, estimate disease burden and evaluate determinants of health as well as impacting positively on public health outcomes.
“As field epidemiology trained officers, you are now competent to investigate and respond to disease outbreaks and public health emergencies, not only in Botswana, but anywhere where your skills and expertise may be needed. Your skills are vital in preventing illness and saving lives,” he said to the 20 field epidemiology graduates.
Permanent secretary in the ministry, Ms Grace Muzila, said the ministry launched a revamped programme last year with intention to build capacity for effective response.
She implored the graduates to employ what they had learnt to impact communities.
Ms Muzila further said the country’s health service was expensive and there was need for field epidemiology officers to work with the community to promote good health attitudes.
Deputy director at the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Mr Hussein Baseer, said the United States had a long standing collaboration with Ministry of Health,citing the US involvement in Botswana’s fight against HIV/AIDS, among other things.
He said the collaboration between CDC and Ministry of Health for the Field Epidemiology Training Programme demonstrated the strong desire by the nations to build resilient health ecosystem, able to offer rapid response to pandemics and other public health emergencies.
He said one of the reason learned from the COVID 19 pandemic was the need to build resilient health systems that could minimise disruptions to health care systems and ensure health security for all, adding that there was no better time than now for governments to invest in the field of epidemiology.
He said as such the US government was ready to support Botswana to improve the health and well-being of its people.
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