During the week of September 17, the Cameroon Field Epidemiology Training Program welcomed TEPHINET project manager Peggy Defay for a site visit in Yaoundé. Through funding from a cooperative agreement with the CDC, TEPHINET provides the FETP with operational support. This is the first time TEPHINET Secretariat staff have held a site visit with the program, which received TEPHINET accreditation in 2017.

During the visit, Defay, the FETP team, and TEPHINET’s logistical contractor supporting the FETP (the Care and Health Program, or CHP) held meetings to identify challenges in the areas of operations and communications and improve how all parties work together. The result of the meetings included an updated work plan and budget for the year. Defay and the FETP team also developed plans for streamlining the flow of information between the program and its stakeholders.

“We accomplished a lot together in terms of mapping out pathways for improvement,” says Defay, who previously worked with the Cameroon FETP from September 2015 to May 2017 as an ASPPH/CDC Global Health Program Management Fellow. “Our focus was on strengthening the relationships between all of the partners on the ground and building more cohesive processes to enhance the operations of the FETP, which is already a strong program.”

Defay also met with some of the FETP’s trainees and graduates; others were in the field conducting outbreak investigations.

Founded in 2010, the program provides field epidemiology training at the basic and advanced levels and is a collaboration between Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Higher Education (through the University of Buea), and the U.S. CDC.