The United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC) has commenced training of Nigerian health workers on their preparedness against further outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The programme, targeted at emergency managers, incident managers, state epidemiologists and other public health experts and stakeholders, kicked off on Monday and was announced in a press statement from the U.S. Consulate in Lagos.

Slated to last for two weeks, the programme seeks to strengthen Nigeria’s health sector on public health emergencies management.

“During the intensive program, participants will receive specialized training in crisis and emergency risk communication as well as public health emergency management functions and operations,” the statement said.

US-CDC Nigeria Country Director Mary Boyd said the training was “part of the U.S. government’s efforts to support pandemic preparedness globally.”

Ms Boyd said “the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates now more than ever the importance of ensuring the public health and health care systems, can adequately prevent, respond to, and recover from health emergencies, particularly those whose scale, timing, or unpredictability threatens to overwhelm routine capabilities.”

The programme is sponsored by the US-CDC in collaboration with the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Georgetown University. On completion of training, participants will be issued professional certification on Public Health Emergency Management.