Photo by IDDS
To increase the capacity to detect emerging zoonotic diseases (those that can spread from animals to humans) Infectious Disease Detection and Surveillance (IDDS) project, in collaboration with the Directorate of Surveillance and Health Quarantine, Indonesia Ministry of Health (MoH), and Eijkman Molecular Biology Research Center, conducted training on the PREDICT laboratory protocol in February and March 2022.
PREDICT is a project of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) program, initiated in 2009 to strengthen global capacity for detection and discovery of zoonotic viruses with pandemic potential. The project has developed basic laboratory procedures and provided training to more than 2,500 staff in developing countries. “The training is very valuable, impactful, and responded to our needs,” said Salli Hattu, laboratory officer in Ambon, Indonesia.
The training was conducted at four public health laboratories in Batam, Ambon, Makassar, and Manado, Indonesia. A total of 23 people were trained. The training successfully increased the participants’ knowledge (see graph below). The goal is to replicate this training in other Indonesian laboratories.
Following the recent trainings, the four laboratories are expected to be able to detect new pathogens (the microorganisms that can cause disease) and emerging infectious diseases and to carry out virus detection and characterization using the PREDICT protocol so that it complements the existing surveillance system for the following priority pathogen groups: influenza, filovirus, coronavirus, paramyxovirus, flavivirus, and hantavirus.
IDDS supported the Eijkman Molecular Biology Research Center in developing the curriculum for this training, which was certified by the Agency for Development and Empowerment Human Resources of Health (BPPSDMK), MoH.
Established in May 2018, USAID’s Infectious Disease Detection and Surveillance (IDDS) project is a five-year, $120 million initiative that operates in more than 20 countries in Africa and Asia where there are significant gaps in health systems’ ability to detect, track, and rapidly respond to infectious diseases and drug-resistant infections that pose a major threat to public health and global health security.
