From July 15 to 23, representatives from the Committee for Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare and Public Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan visited the Unit for Surveillance and the Electronic Notification and Information System at Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin. This visit marked the next step in the collaborative efforts between the two organizations, focusing on the completion of the study protocol and development of methods to evaluate Uzbekistan's statutory surveillance system for infectious diseases. One of the partners, Ms Lola Hujamberdieva, visited the RKI as part of the RIO project, which is designed to facilitate international scientific exchange.
During the stay, the team discussed the outline of the study's methods and key objectives and reached the set-out goals of initial drafts for the questionnaire and dataset, which will be used for data collection in the evaluation process.
The visit also included several sessions on the exchange of knowledge and experience with experts from the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Department on various topics related to infectious disease surveillance in Germany. Additionally, the participants had the opportunity to observe the operations of the Emergency Operation Center and the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory at RKI. Moreover, Katja Kajikhina and Adine Marquis (Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology, RKI) presented a comprehensive overview of the principles of surveys, practical considerations for development of questionnaires and the experiences from the evaluation of Germany's surveillance system for mandatory notifiable infectious diseases. The sessions offered the Uzbek partners an opportunity to gain insights and practical knowledge and apply it directly in the development of the study during the working sessions.
The visit to the Local Public Health Authority (PHA) in Steglitz-Zehlendorf in Berlin, provided the Uzbek delegation an opportunity to observe local-level public health operations and engage with professionals actively working in the field.
The final step of the visit was the discussion on the next steps of the study, which includes the development and piloting of the questionnaire for an online survey of 206 local PHA in Uzbekistan as well as the training on further data collection methods in specific PHA for the study, which are planned in September 2024.
We would like to thank all colleagues at RKI for their support of this activity.
Picture 1: Visit of colleagues from the Committee for Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare and Public Health of Uzbekistan to the Robert Koch Institute. Group picture
Picture 2: Discussion on the study on evaluation of the surveillance system in Uzbekistan, RKI
Picture 3: Visit of the Local Public Health authority at Stegliz-Zelendorf. Group picture
Picture 4: Visit of the Uzbek partners to the Emergency Operation Center at RKI
Source of all photos: FG32
Authors: D. Abzulinova, I. Markus, A. Marquis (RKI); 22.08.2024
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