In response to recommendations from the 14th Bi-Regional National Influenza Centre meeting, Timor-Leste conducted a two-day influenza data management workshop with WHO and the US CDC Thailand office. Timor-Leste aims to regularly identify data related training needs and conduct in-country trainings.
The WHO South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) is supporting improvements in early warning, alert, and surveillance of seasonal and non-seasonal influenza in Member States, in line with the agenda item 17.1 of the World Health Assembly (WHA 75). Improvements in influenza data reporting and management are an essential part of this strategy, and WHO and partners are providing technical support to countries to improve all relevant capacities.
At the request of the Timor-Leste Ministry of Health, SEARO conducted an influenza data management training with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC), Thailand Office from 29 November to 1 December 2022.
The objectives of the workshop were to enhance national and sub-national capacities in influenza data management, and align influenza data collection, collation, and analysis methods with national and global influenza surveillance standards. The aim of the training was that these capacities would enable better evidence-based decision-making for the prevention and control of influenza, as well as strengthening capacities for timely reporting of influenza to the global data sharing platform FluMart. The workshop was attended by 34 participants involved in data handling at the national and sub-national levels. These participants completed a pre- and post-training test, after which they reported a 53% increase in knowledge.
At the conclusion of the workshop, the Ministry of Health and WHO Country Office agreed that given the basic training has already been provided to the health staff, training gaps and needs would be clearly identified and addressed through follow-up activities. Furthermore, it was agreed that the quarterly implementation review meetings could be used for assessing the progress of data management and reporting to Flu Mart. This highlighted how further support from the PIP Partnership Contribution could be used for the implementation of data management training recommendations.
