he paramedical health personnel are key pillars of public health services and play crucial part in the early detection of outbreaks in the community. To manage and control infectious and preventable diseases and achieve better quality surveillance data, effective strategic measures are needed to enhance the skills of not only medical personnel but also of paramedical personnel. Various training programs to train medical personnel have been set up in different countries but there was scarcity of the training programmes for the paramedical personnel.

Recognising this need the National Institute of Communicable Diseases started a four weeks “Regional Training Programme on Prevention & Control of Communicable Diseases” for the paramedical health personnel of South East Asia Region in 1999. This is a tailor-made training programme for participants from countries of South East Asia Region to strengthen their epidemiological skills. The course is organized once a year. So far, a total of 150 participants from Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India have been trained at the NICD.

The objective of the course is to strengthen the technical capabilities and skills of paramedical personnel by providing practical training in prevention & control of communicable diseases and application of computer for surveillance purposes.

The course is of four-week duration with focus on field project and practical demonstration. The methodology of the course includes lectures, technical discussions, modular exercises, demonstration, visits to institutions and field exercises. Basic skills for use of computers for surveillance are also provided.

The training program broadly covers topics on basic epidemiology, basic statistics, disease surveillance, epidemic preparedness, outbreak investigation and response, designing field based studies, carrying out field-exercise, field exercises/surveys and report writing and its presentation.

The monitoring and evaluation of the course is carried out using pre- and post-training assessment tests. The feedback is utilized to further improve the course