Meeting to integrate the countries of the Black Seat into MediPIET

On 25th and 26th May 2015, in Tiflis, Georgia, the MediPIET Programme will be working at the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), jointly with members of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), members of the public health institutes of Armenia, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine, as well as guests from the health institutes of Egypt, Tunisia and Serbia on identifying the information necessary to enable the project to decide if these countries will enter the Fellows programme at the same level as the rest of the countries, all of which are in the Mediterranean basin. This is a learning-by-doing fellowship programme that will follow all the training being given in the different modules (theoretical training). The fellows will also be supervised by experts designated for this purpose.

This meeting is the result of a prior research report which assesses the needs of Armenia, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine in the area of field epidemiology. The public health institutes of these countries will provide and share with the other countries the results extracted from the needs assessment, as well as their experiences, and will discuss the opportunities the project can offer them for improving their institutions and professionals.

In addition, this meeting will provide spaces for the countries to present their national plans related to field epidemiology, thereby allowing them to discuss and give the members of the Scientific Advisory Board an opportunity to learn first-hand how these countries work and to contribute their suggestions and comments for improving the plans.

By the end of this meeting, it is hoped that a commitment by the countries of the Black Sea can be reached for their active participation in the MediPIET Programme.