The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Nutrition recently implemented the Event-Based Surveillance (EBS) System which is a critical strategy to enhance the rapid detection, assessment and response to new and emerging public health threats.
In light of this, the Ministry in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) is conducting capacity building workshops with community focal persons and 311 call centre personnel to better familiarize them with the EBS system. The first training session brought together community focal persons which included representatives from Red Cross, National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) and community disaster groups.
Through presentations and discussions, participants learned about the identification of diseases and public health events, establishment of a community-based surveillance structure, reporting and investigating of public health events and supervising a community-based surveillance structure.
National Epidemiologist Dr. Michelle Francois says it is her hope that participants will be better equipped to conduct surveillance of emerging health threats and to facilitate quicker and more effective responses in their respective communities. “These are individuals who live in the communities and they know best these communities. They form… part of our national surveillance system, whereby we train them, we educate them on what is happening in Saint Lucia and they in return knowing their communities in that level of detail, they come back and let us know what is happening in their communities. They are best placed to do so, they know their communities intimately, they know their people intimately and they are able to tell us what they are seeing on the ground: increases in fever and rash, increases in joint pain, sudden deaths, deaths of animals that are unexpected. So, these are the kinds of things we are training them to look for and report to us and in return we work closely with them explaining our system and how they form part of it.”
PAHO Country Programme Specialist Fiona Anthony expressed appreciation for the community focal persons’ engagement in this training as they are an essential part of the success of the EBS system. “I trust that you will have a rewarding, informative and enjoyable experience during this training and we are thankful to the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Nutrition in Saint Lucia for convening this training after leading the way regionally in event-based surveillance. PAHO remains committed to supporting the ministry in all efforts to strengthen surveillance systems in Saint Lucia.”
In the coming week, 311 call centre personnel will also get trained on the EBS system.
The training is being funded by the Pandemic Fund Project.