By Asmau Ahmad
The Public Health Emergency Management Professional Certification Programme graduated its second cohort of 25 state epidemiologists in Nigeria at a ceremony held on Friday.
According to a press statement released by the US Consulate General, Public Affairs Section, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) collaborated to deliver the two-week intermediate-level professional certification training.
Speaking at the graduation, US Consul General, Will Stevens, underscored the US Government’s commitment and prioritisation of Public Health Emergency Management as Nigeria work towards achieving Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) 2024 targets and meeting International Health Regulations (IHR) requirements by strengthening workforce development, disease surveillance, emergency response, and laboratory capacity.
The Consul General highlighted the strategic partnership between the US and Nigeria to strengthen health security and respond to disease threats. “The US Government is committed to promoting the health and wellbeing of Nigerians through initiatives and training that increase disease prevention, detection, and response,” he added.
In her remarks, US-CDC Nigeria Country Director, Dr. Mary Boyd, said, “the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates now more than ever the importance of ensuring public health systems can adequately detect, prevent, respond to, and recover from health emergencies, particularly those whose scale, timing, or unpredictability threatens to overwhelm routine capabilities.”
The PHEM PC Program is part of the US Government’s efforts to support pandemic preparedness in Nigeria and globally.
It provides emergency managers, incident managers, state epidemiologists, first responders, watch managers, and other public health experts with specialized training in public health emergency management and operations and other critical preparedness and response skills, including crisis and emergency risk communication.
